


Shattered Souls

by immortalkaos80



Series: Star Wars: Lodestar [1]
Category: Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Legacy of the Force Series - Aaron Allston & Troy Denning & Karen Traviss, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Jedi, Mild Language, Mild Sexual Content, Multi, New Jedi Order, Nudity, Old Jedi Order, Retcon, Retelling, Romance, Sith, The Old Republic/Legacy Era Crossover, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-27 20:12:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 75,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6298582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/immortalkaos80/pseuds/immortalkaos80
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No war can last forever. Now, in the long and punishing battle between the defiant champions of the New Jedi Order and the juggernaut that is the Galactic Alliance, the endgame is finally at hand. With so much lost—and nothing less than the course of the future still at stake—there can be no turning back. No matter the consequences.</p><p>Tormented and torn between the call of duty and the thirst for vengeance, Luke has searched the Force and beheld an unspeakable vision of the galaxy enslaved under tyranny more monstrous than even Palpatine’s. Now it seems that the last, best hope lies in mobilizing the scattered Jedi for one decisive search-and-destroy mission. The objective: eliminate Darth Caedus.</p><p>But all is not what it seems and the Force has a will of it's own. Luke and the Jedi face an entirely new and unforeseen threat...one far greater than any they or Darth Caedus have ever imagined. From out of the past the greatest darkness the galaxy has ever known rises...and with it...its greatest hope. Everything is about to change... and it will take the strength of the past and present to survive...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first in a series that takes the Star Wars EU as of LotF: Invincible and goes AU with it, leading things in a different direction. SWTOR/SWLOTF converge on each other with spectacular fashion. 
> 
> **All credit for reworked pieces given to their respective authors. I own nothing.**
> 
> COMMENTS AND REVIEWS APPRECIATED!!

_Coruscant, New Republic City-41 ABY_

 

Darth Caedus reached out again and again through the Force, pushing the limits of his power in the Darkside, probing the future, trying desperately to see beyond the never ending stream of visions that portended danger and disaster that all ended with the Grand Master of the Jedi. Luke Skywalker. Jacen Solo’s uncle. But no matter how hard he tried, how dispassionately or intently he focused he could not see past it, to Skywalker coming for him, to destroy him—to the path to the future he wanted so intensely.

Order.

There must be order! Without it, the galaxy was doomed to reel into eternal darkness from which it would never return. He had seen it before, knew it to be true as the galaxy spun ever closer to disaster and no one else would see it. There was only him between utter galactic ruin and every sentient being in existence. And so, standing alone, vilified and cast out, he had made the ultimate sacrifice. Destroying all that he cared about, the family he had once had, the bonds that had bound them, the naïve man, Jacen Solo, that he had been, everything, for this one goal. Order instead of chaos.

The path to the Darkside they had said. Fools! There was no Darkside, no Lightside. Only the Force. _He_ had been One with the Force and _seen_ the truth when he had defeated Omini during the final battle of the Yuuzhan Vong War. It was a state he knew he would never achieve again but it had been enough.

He was not Darth Vader, riddled with the faults that had rendered the Sith incapable of succeeding where Caedus would not fail. No matter the cost. Vader had been hindered by the fear of loss, a trait that Caedus did not share. No, Caedus had deliberately rid himself of all that he could lose so that he could—under the guidance of Lumiya his former Sith Master--become truly Sith. Truly powerful enough to save the galaxy from its fate. From the Dark Man in his visions that he could no longer see for Skywalker.  It could not fall, for if it did so too would his daughter, Allana.

Lumiya was dead now, slain by Skywalker- but it no longer mattered. She had simply been one of the last bonds—the last sacrifices--Caedus had to rid himself of to reach his full power and Skywalker had done it for him. He was strong enough now; he held the infinitely stronger power of the Darkside in the palm of his hand.

Why then could he not see beyond Skywalker?!  In frustration, Caedus withdrew from his probing of the Force, rising from his kneeling position to furiously hurtle the closest thing nearby… a small table…across the sleeping quarters of his simple but once luxurious Coruscant apartment with a vicious flick of his wrist.

The table slammed into the opposite wall and splintered into pieces. Caedus set his jaw, made his mind still and his anger calm. He must not lose sight of his goal. He must not stop. He had planned for this, obviously, but something must be done…now. Before Skywalker came for him and ruined everything. He would not risk failure, not now.

Before Caedus could consider anything else, he heard the high-pitched rhythmic beep of the comm. station in the living area notifying him he had an incoming communication from someone. Annoyed at the interruption he went to answer it, passing from his minimally furnished sleep quarters to the only slightly more appointed living area. Whatever attachment Caedus had once had for material pleasures he had eradicated as viciously as he had any other attachment in his life.

“What?” he barked as he touched the comm. panel to receive the call. The viewscreen flickered as an image of the caller resolved itself. It was a medical droid—a modified GH-7 model that hovered back and forth on the view screen as it kept itself aloft on miniature repulsor lifts. Caedus felt a combined twinge of dread and hope.

“Lord Caedus, you wished to be notified when your…project…had reached the next stage,” the droid explained in a soft, abased voice, careful not to say specifically what the project was over a comm. channel…just as Caedus had programmed it to do. He preferred using droids to run things. Droids you could ensure the loyalty of, they didn’t possess the unfortunate tendency to develop a misguided conscience.

“All of it?” he asked.

“Yes, my Lord.”

“I am on my way. Prepare things for my arrival,” Caedus said shortly, curbing the bloom of triumph in his chest but feeling a confident rush that the timely notification was no simple stroke of luck and bolstering his convictions. There was no luck, there was the Force. Caedus clicked off the call, giving the droid no time to make further comment and strode purposefully from the room, yellow eyes rimmed with red that were once brown nearly glowing with anticipation, his black Galactic Alliance Guard armor glinting and his black cape flaring behind him…unintentionally evoking the remembered shadow of the past…Darth Vader.

 

***

The controls of his StealthX moved smoothly under Darth Caedus’ hands, sending the starfighter gliding through space toward Coruscant’s sterile second moon Centax-2. He could have taken a shuttle up for the short trip but he did not wish for anyone to know where he was going, slipping out of dock without anyone noticing with ease. As the fighter moved into the atmosphere of the moon, Caedus passed over the former Jedi Starfighter Training base that resided on the side of the moon closest to Coruscant.

The base was empty now since the Jedi had fled Coruscant in the wake of the Second Galactic Civil War, abandoning the Galactic Alliance mid battle and turning against Caedus—then Jacen Solo—to fight the war alone as they withdrew all Jedi first to Endor and then…after Caedus had found them again…to parts unknown.

He didn’t even spare the abandoned facility a glance, all his attention focused on his destination on the other side of the moon. He sent the StealthX down , banking to the right as he curved over a ridge of barren rock that had not yet succumbed to time to become dust. As the ridge disappeared beneath him, the sterile and lifeless landscape of Centax-2 stretched out, save for a hatch large enough to fly a fighter through that lay embedded in the ground.

During the Clone Wars and later the First Galactic Civil War  waged against the Empire, headed by Darth Sidious and Darth Vader the moon had served as, first, military staging and fleet maintenance for the Old Republic and then as the location for an Arkanian Microtechnologies’ Spaarti Cloning Facility. While the structures that had once served the Old Republic had eventually become the now abandoned Jedi Starfighter Training Base, the Spaarti Cloning Facility had been destroyed or removed after the Old Republic Senate had passed Decree E49D139.41banning the non-military cloning of sentients and restricting even military cloning to licensed facilities approved by the Senate, exempting only specifically named medical cloning facilities. But some of the equipment remained.

Not used in more than 70 years it had remained forgotten until Caedus—then still Jacen Solo but already beginning his way down the path to the Darkside--had accidently stumbled upon it. His discovery had spurred an idea that at the time had been a ludicrous impossibility. But now, that idea was about to become a reality.

Caedus set the StealthX down a short distance from the large hatch and disembarked, dropping to the ground with an effortless leap. The fighter’s cockpit hatch hissed shut unnoticed behind him as he swept toward the ground hatch.

With a touch, the hatch groaned opened, responding to him alone. He had taken a page from Luke Skywalker’s book, rigging the hatch’s locking mechanism to only respond to the Force so that all within and any without who tried to get in save himself would not be able to just as Skywalker and his now dead wife Mara Jade-Skywalker had done with Mara’s ship _The Jade Shadow_. He did not wait for the hatch to creak its way completely open, instead as soon as there was enough room for him to pass he hopped through, armored feet clanging onto the durasteel ramp that lead to the corridor below.

The corridor was dimly lit, the facility reserving all its power for its true purpose. By the time he reached the laboratory within, the GH-7 medical droid was well aware of his approach, alerted by the clink of his armored feet on the durasteel floor. The facility wasn’t pretty to look at, indeed it was an austere construction of bare durasteel plating, durasteel girders and equipment, but it was efficient as exhibited by the tanks that stood behind the medical droid as it waved its multi jointed limbs nervously.

The droid chattered something at him that Caedus ignored. He had eyes only for the Spaarti Cloning Cylinders beyond. He stepped around the droid, which followed still chattering placatudes and assurances. He approached as near as he dared and looked at the Cylinders and the nude clones within them that floated in stasis, without consciousness or life, breathing only because of the masks that were fitted to their mouths and nostrils in the same manner as a patient in a Bacta tank. In fact one could be forgiven for mistaking the Cylinders for exactly that, for the appearance of either showed little difference save that the fluid within a Bacta tank was a faint blue while the Spaarti Cylinders bore a greenish fluid.

No two of the clones were the same, each one the unique and solitary duplicate of their ‘donors’. Each specially selected by Caedus after months of work. All were vital to his plan but one, the most uniquely acquired, held the greatest measure of his hopes and dreams.

Caedus had other no other Sith at his command. He had an apprentice in the former Jedi Tahiri Veila who showed great promise.  But it was not enough.

Caedus had enough military force through the Galactic Alliance to win the war, of that he was certain. But he was the Last Sith Lord and was vastly outnumbered and out powered by the Jedi and his probing of the future only confirmed his fears that even if he won the war he would still lose. Skywalker would stop him if he did not do something.

Caedus’ solution had been simple. What he needed were more Sith, Sith powerful enough to render the Jedi threat null and void. With access to the archives of the abandoned Jedi Temple on Coruscant he had begun digging through records and artifacts, searching for the most powerful Jedi that had come before who had for one reason or another sealed themselves to or been trapped in artifacts upon death. Finding those artifacts—or stealing them while the Jedi had still not realized that Jacen Solo had become Caedus—had been even harder. Finding those of that number that left behind some remnant of their physical bodies from which Caedus could garner enough DNA to clone them had been harder yet with the propensity for their bodies to simply disappear when they died—as they became one with the Force.

But he had managed to find a few.

Cloning them had been harder still. Cloning in itself was riddled with down falls that often rendered its use impractical in the short term. The Kamino method of cloning, though considered vastly superior to Spaarti technology, required that a clone be grown to young adult maturity over the course of a decade and then spend longer still in rapid learning. While it had made for superior troops during the Clone Wars it was not efficient for Caedus’s plan. Kamino Clones tended to develop their own personalities and wills from the very beginning, making them ill suited for what Caedus wanted.

Spaarti technology had sought to remedy the problem by developing a method of cloning that allowed the production of a fully mature clone in a year, circumventing the long learning process of the Kamino method by copying the personality and memories of the donor onto the unconscious mind of the clone through a process called ‘flash memory’. The result was a copy of the donor who often had no idea that they were not in fact the donor they had been cloned from.

However, Spaarti clones would often succumb to the problem of being slightly different than their donor, developing their own strengths and weaknesses and ultimately being nothing more than a genetically identical copy that was not for all intents and purposes its donor but it’s own individual despite sharing its donors memories up to the time of creation.

It had been this method, minus the process of Flash Memory, that Darth Sidious had used to evade death, growing entire armies of himself that remained unconscious  blank states until the Sith’s current vessel deteriorated to the point of uselessness. At which point he would transfer his essence to a fresh clone. However, Sidious had had the luxury of time, growing his clones in secret over the course of years and held against need.

Caedus did not have a year. But speeding up a Spaarti clones’ growth to produce one in less than that time inevitably resulted in the clone going stark raving insane. It had been the Chiss Grand Admiral Thrawn that had discovered an answer to Caedus’s problem years before. He had discovered that a Spaarti clone could be grown to maturity in fifteen to twenty one days without the side effect of insanity if one enveloped the clone in Ysalamiri bubbles—the Force repelling shields produced by the small furry lizards native to Myrkr to protect themselves from their Force-Sensitive predator the vornskrs--during development, solved the issue by cutting off the clones’ connection to the Force and giving one the option of producing mass quantities of stable flash memory clones or blank slates for essence transfer at will.

But Thrawn had never had the breadth of vision that Caedus had. He had used his discovery only to grow clones of himself for his own use, as soldiers and one as a way of guaranteeing his continued legacy. Caedus however was uninterested in extending his own lifespan as Sidious had or in constructing a non-Force-Sensitive clone army to fight for him as Thrawn and the Old Republic had. No Caedus had far more lofty goals.

He would have an army of Sith the power of which had not been seen in centuries. One already deeply versed in the Force and strong enough to defeat the Jedi Order that stood against him and not consumed by the desire to gain power but to create order from chaos.

Powerful Sith who bound themselves in disembodied forms through the Darkside had the nasty habit of going insane during their incorporeal existence however, as Caedus well knew after Jacen’s experience with Exar Kun, rendering them useless for his plans. So Caedus had chosen Jedi instead. Nothing he had ever discovered suggested that resurrected Jedi, of which there were very, very few, lost their holds on reality perhaps because, like those Caedus had gathered, none had been resurrected by choice. Disembodied Sith Lords tended to desire resurrection just so they could regain their power at any cost, the precise situation Caedus was trying to avoid.

These disembodied Jedi would be the birth of a new Sith. One dedicated to enforcing order and peace with no desire for the power for its own sake. He would use the same methods as Sidious, pulling the Jedi spirits from the artifacts and transferring them to their blank clones, then before they had taken their first voluntary breath, he would turn them to his path, the true path of the Force. Not dark or light just…the Force.

Caedus reached out as if to touch one of the cylinders. There were ten others but this one contained his most prized clone. His fingers hesitated just beyond the reach of the Ysalamri bubble produced in response to any Force-sensitive nearby, by the half meter long lizard whose cage hung directly over the cylinder, encasing it in a ten square meter bubble in which the Force was powerless.

The clone was a human female, her hair some shade of blonde though the green tint of the cylinder’s fluid prevented Caedus from telling more, never touched or shorn during the clone’s growth, streamed out like seaweed, long enough to have served as cloak. Her eyes that had never yet seen the world were closed firmly as her limbs floated limply, her head turned upward in the grasp of the breathing apparatus that kept the clone from drowning. She was slim and long of limb and approximately the same age Caedus himself was—32--for he had wanted his clones aged to the prime of their lives. This one was his prize and it had been the finding of both the necessary physical remnants and the artifact to which she was bound that had confirmed to him that his plan was not just a wild idea but the will of the Force.

The first part he had found, stashed away in the cache of artifacts in the Jedi’s keeping. It had been a seemingly insignificant pendant that had been rumored to once belong to a powerful ancient Jedi. Nothing more had been known about it. None of the ancient holocrons the Jedi had found since the Order had been reborn had mentioned anything about it. Who the Jedi had been or why they were considered so powerful was lost to the fickle whims of time. But when Lumiya had given him a rock-a plain rock that might have been found kicked from any dirt path on any planet in the galaxy and indeed he had no idea where Lumiya had found it-just before she had been slain by Skywalker, taking the blame for his murder of Jacen Solo’s Aunt, Mara Jade Skywalker so that Caedus might have the time he needed to consolidate his power--he had recognized the spirit bound to it, one of immense power with incredible potential for both light and dark as having the same ‘feel’ as the faint signature that belonged to the pendant.

That in itself had not been enough to give him what he wanted however. A pendant could not give him the bodily sample he needed for a clone even if the little rock held the most powerful Jedi in the universe…until he had accidently discovered that the pendant wasn’t solid and wasn’t just a simple pendant. It was a micro-sized stasis unit and within the simple but elegantly engraved silver teardrop had been a single lock of perfectly preserved molten gold hair. Then Caedus had known. It was not a crazed idea nor was it the ‘stroke of luck’ Han Solo would have deemed it. It was the will of the Force.

That the small brownish gray rock, worn smooth over centuries, seemed to draw him, call to him, had only cemented the fact. All the other Jedi imbued artifacts Caedus had kept safely tucked away here until the clones were ready but the small rock, small enough that he could close his hand over it completely, he carried with him in much the same way others carried luck charms. He often fondled it, feeling the ancient spirit within with such power and potential for light and dark. He had, on occasion tried to coax the spirit within to respond to his presence the way disembodied Sith Lords or the gatekeepers of holocrons did but to no avail. Instead, despite the pull he felt for the small thing, it had seemed to tighten in on itself as if recoiling from the disturbance to its sleep. Caedus had not fretted, he would meet the Jedi soon enough.

He pulled his hand back to tuck it beneath his robe and caress the rock, safely ensconced in one of his belt pouches. It was warm to his touch and without trying it felt more ‘alive’ than it ever had, more active, thrumming with the Force…the spirit within tightening in on itself and unfurling in turns as though it knew what was coming. He spared a glance for the other ten clones, eyes flitting over each of them with scrutiny, appraising his soon-to-be followers. Each was as perfect as the first, though none met the potential of his prize, they were powerful. Caedus would succeed.

“They have all reached the desired stage of growth you requested, my Lord Master,” the medical droid simpered behind them.

Caedus dragged his eyes away from the cylinders and looked back over his shoulder, dark hair slipping forward to shadow his yellow eyes.

“And the preparations are complete?” he asked.

“Of course my Lord Master,” the droid assured, multi-jointed arms waving nervously. “The chamber is just as you specified.”

“Then,” Caedus said, fingers curling unconsciously around the stone in his belt pouch as his eyes were drawn back to the female clone that would be the strongest of his new Sith. He would begin with her. It would take several days to complete the transference for all of the clones. Caedus would have to rest between each he knew, for it would take a great deal of power and skill to accomplish even one.  “Prepare this one and move it to the chamber immediately.”

“Right away sir!” the droid squeaked and bobbled off through the air rapidly to do Caedus’s bidding…just as his prize would.

Caedus tore his eyes away from the clone and swept from the room to prepare himself for the procedure. Soon his prize’s power would be his own.

 

***

The room was devoid of all but the most necessary items. The Spaarti cylinder was positioned upright on his right, the ysalamiri and its bubble that had kept the clone cut off from the Force no longer present and to his left on the floor next to him lay the stone. The only other thing present save Darth Caedus himself, the stone and the clone, was the small power unit that kept the Spaarto cylinder active between transports whirring softly. All else was durasteel plate, above, below and beneath. Even the lights had been shut off, to facilitate the state of quiet Caedus desired. The power unit giving only a faintly green hue to an approximately one meter circle around itself. The room had perhaps been a laboratory from the discarded equipment that Caedus had had removed from it and its proximity adjacent to the actual room of Spaarti cyclinders.

Caedus knelt, deep in meditation, all but his goal excised from his mind. He would need absolute focus to accomplish his task. He forced away and shielded himself against any chance of the errant visions of doom and disaster he had been plagued with and worked to draw as much of his hatred to his hand as possible For it was his hatred that he would pour into the re-ensouled body while the Jedi spirit was at its absolute weakest.

As he understood it, the process would be exhausting for himself, pushing him to the limits of his considerable power, but for the Jedi’s spirit it would be excruciating. The process was so corrupting, so violent on the one on which is was wrought that the very vessel, living or not, from which the spirit was torn would be utterly destroyed. All to the better. Pain he could use to feed his corruption of the newly implanted spirit to the Dark Side.

He would have exactly one chance to accomplish this for if he faltered for even an instant he would lose his control on the spirit and it would be lost to him forever, consigned to the Void for all eternity or perhaps, since the spirit was Jedi and not Sith, to the Netherworld of the Force. In either case, he would lose his prize.

Time ceased to be of consequence for Darth Caedus. How long he knelt on the cold durasteel floor of the empty room could have been minutes or years. But eventually he had drawn to himself every micron of power he could without risking Force Exhaustion, filling his personal reservoir of power to bursting. It was time to begin.

Eyes shut in concentration, he reached out to the inert clone, establishing the simplest link first. He sought its existence through the Force and seized on it with ease wielding the wealth of power he had drawn to him and the clone’s mindless, will-less existence.

Then he opened himself fully to the spirit bound to the stone. It _writhed_ within its deceivingly mundane confines. Turning and twisting with power like a nest of agitated amphistaffs so violently that it _felt_ as though it were tying itself in knots in response to Caedus’s questing probes. It writhed with such ferocity that any attempt Caedus made to seize upon the bound spirit failed, for each time he thought he had it within grasp, each time it seemed that the spirit reached toward his seeking presence, it would wrench itself away savagely.

Caedus refused to be dissuaded or discouraged. He remained focused, calm. He would succeed. The spirit within still called to him, drew him like a moth to a flame despite its contrary evasion of his grasp.

Eventually the spirit seemed to unknot to some degree when Caedus’ unrelenting attempts seemed to prove to it that though it was successfully evading his attempts to seize control of it, it was not stopping him from his efforts. Instead, the spirit changed tactics seeming to invert itself, shoving the dark part of itself as far away as it possibly could and pushing against Caedus’s own power as though it meant to use the light part of itself as a bulwark or shield against his machinations. 

But so intense was Caedus’s determination, so profound had its call to him become, that he battered at it and its own dark half pummeled from within drawn to Caedus’s return call, that the light part began to falter, torn between containing it’s dark half from within and Caedus’ assault from without.

It was a battle the spirit could not win. Indeed, it was Caedus’ belief that it was not one it _wanted_ to win, for the dark half reached for him as eagerly as a love-starved child. It was simply that the spirit was so old, for now Caedus could feel its tremendous age, and so entrenched in the stone to which it was bound that it fought out of habit to return to the place it had resided longest, the way a diverted river will return to its bed if allowed to. It wanted out; the silent call had become almost an audible whisper now, a fervent conflicted plea to both be left alone and to be freed. 

At last, the spirit’s dark half managed to batter its way past the light, a single minute thread slipping past the light’s attempts to contain it. Caedus seized the ephemeral thread with a vengeance and pulled with every bit of his power, attempted to wrench the spirit free of its vessel by sheer force.

The light half of the spirit responded by abandoning all attempts to shield Caedus’ attempts to reach it and instead attempted to withdraw as it had done before he had sought to yank it from its vessel. It fled almost frantically away as though if it could withdraw itself deep enough that it would bury part of itself so far within its vessel it could not be rooted out. But its two sided battle against itself and Caedus had weakened it too far. It’s dark half reached hungrily for what Caedus offered despite the agony the transference process must have been causing the spirit, refusing to remain bound. 

But still the light half would not give up its battle. It took everything Caedus could muster to hold on to the eager dark half. Yes, the spirit was powerful, incredibly so. Pleased that he had been right about the spirit’s sheer power Caedus exerted everything, risking utter Force Exhaustion, to wrench the spirit free, pulling the tenuous tether he held within his grasp toward the sure gripe he possessed on the vacant clone. If he could only anchor the spirit, the eager dark half would do the rest.

But no matter how fiercely Caedus strove he could not quite succeed. With a roar of frustration, he fed all of his pooled hatred into his efforts, feeding the weak tendril of the spirits dark half to strengthen it, to corrupt the spirit to his will.

Everything happened at once. The dark half of the spirit swelled like a megalith of power and reached for the clone vessel it so craved. Caedus, having exhausted his reserves of power was left with only dregs. The small, plain, stone that had contained the spirit for thousands of years, yes thousands, of that Caedus was certain, exploded with an underwhelming pop, scattering into dust on the durasteel floor. But most awesome of all, the light half of the spirit surged to awakefulness with a sheer raw power that left Caedus breathless and plunged toward the waiting clone body it had formerly fought so valiantly not to be forced into dragging the dark half behind it helplessly.

Caedus wanted to cheer with triumph as the spirit plunged within the clone but his triumph was incredibly short lived as the light half of the spirit suddenly lashed out at its dark half, unleashing a blast wave of Force Energy so intense Caedus could physically hear the spirit rip apart. The shockwave rippled out like a star going nova, sending Caedus flying across the room to slam into the opposite wall like the table he had thrown earlier and casting the dark half of itself away, leaving it to ricochet around the room with a palpable scream of thwarted rage.  The shockwave rippled out and away, sweeping through the hidden cloning facility, through the moon itself and out into the galaxy. Caedus felt the uncontrolled power of it wreck havoc on the moon’s surface, stirring to life a maelstrom on the dead moon like a Tatooine sand storm of epic proportions.

The clone body came to full life. It’s eyes snapped open, green eyes like verdant leaves and it screamed despite the breathing apparatus affixed to its head and mouth, the force of it exploding the Spaarti cylinder and sending a storm of transparisteel shards rocketing across the room. That scream was the single most pained sound Caedus had ever heard in his or Jacen Solo’s lifetime. And in that instant, as Caedus shielded himself from the flying shards and the dark half wailed in fury and pain raging around him with enough power to decimate anything within its reach but unable to use its full potential in it’s disembodied, wounded state, Caedus realized the horrifying magnitude of his error.

The stone had not contained one spirit with unimaginable power for light and dark. It had held two spirits, one dark, one light--each equally as powerful as the other, and bound irrevocably to one another. A state the lightsided spirit had forcefully negated by ripping them apart and seizing the clone body before the dark one could.

Caedus had been wrong and…he was afraid.

 

***

 

Pain. There was nothing but inconceivable, unimaginable pain. Her very soul felt sundered, torn and bleeding like a severed limb as her body collapsed out of the shattered cylinder that had held it onto to the cold hard durasteel floor to lie in the transparisteel littered pool of greenish fluid that had gushed forth upon the cylinder’s destruction. She feebly tore at the mask attached to her head with her hands desperate to breathe free air, the action both familiar and foreign. Vaguely, distantly, she—she was certain of that she was ‘she’—that once she had a body like this with hands and arms and legs but she had been apart from that for so long that how to operate those body parts required effort. Everything else was a burned blur of pain. She felt, as she fought to control the body she now found herself in, that she had known why she was here, who or what she was and how she’d gotten there only moments before. But now it was all gone, swallowed by the miasma of pain and chaos that raged within and without.

The only purpose that remained to her with any clarity was that the dark spirit that raged around her in fury, seeking enough power to lash out, must be stopped. It would seek a vessel, any vessel. And the person…he, it was a he and somehow she felt as though she should know him in some fashion, that was struggling to rise to his feet, clad in black armor was woefully ill equipped to stop it. He was injured and weakened despite the astounding ability she could feel he held, a prime target for the spirit the moment it regained enough control of itself to realize it.

Fight the spirit. Protect the person. The spirit was about to strike.

She could feel the spirit’s intent as strongly as she felt her own and she instinctively knew that it—no he, it too was a he--could feel hers. Why she didn’t know, not anymore, it simply was.

She felt as though she should be able to communicate a warning to the person who had regained his feet, his hand going automatically to the lightsaber hilt (she recognized what it was implicitly) at his hip but she couldn’t find a way. She was too pained and too wounded to remember what it was to form words, or even that words could be spoken and not only thought.

 Incapable of communicating she instead, acted. Ceasing any attempt to maneuver her recalcitrant body which was—unbeknowst to her-- as unused to movement as she was to willing it to move, she reached for the Force and it respond to her seeking readily, it had always been with her, always would be but now the act of calling the power of the Force to her was pure agony. But she must. Fighting through the pain, she gathered as much power as she could manage, though it railed wildly out of true control and caused her untold agony to wield, hurling it at the spirit. Forcing it away from the person even as the spirit made a mad play to seize the person for themselves.

The person—his expression one of utter surprise--dodged the onslaught of barely directed energy and the seeking spirit, igniting his lightsaber, the glowing, eye searing, length of it blood red. Dismay shook her and she consciously caught the person’s eyes for the first time, yellow red-rimmed eyes. Darkside. For no understandable reason to her, it caused her a great deal of upset to realize this. Upset that shook her tenuous control enough that the spirit made another play for the person.

Now she willed her body to move, suffusing its limbs with the Force until it obeyed her and then she exerted control over what had been the body’s cocoon, the shattered cylinder and telekinetically picked it up, sending it hurtling in the direction of the spirit…and the person it hovered over. The person would survive the physical assault; he would not survive the grasp of the spirit.

The spirit—no more substantial than a purplish black cloud of hate, anger and above all fear made manifest too wounded by the sundering to take a more recognizable form--turned in on itself, raging and furious at her continued battle against it, a battle she felt certain had been going on…and would go on… for eternity.

The person managed to repel the physical assault, sending the shattered cylinder back the way it had come with great effort and at her. Somehow, she summoned the will to move, narrowly avoiding being crushed by it. The person glared at her, furious. Obviously not grasping the danger he was in and mistaking the assault as an attack against him.

“Don’t make me destroy you,” he growled at her, lightsaber held menacingly before him. Words. She understood them but didn’t know how to respond, to answer, to explain. He raised the lightsaber as though to come at her in an attack of his own but the spirit took his distraction as an opening, again making a dive for the heedless person.

She reached out and pushed, sending the person flying to the side and away from the spirit, then attempted to solidify the excruciatingly gained power into a shield between person and spirit. It failed. Struck down by the very person it was meant to protect as both her and the spirit roared with fury. She looked at the person wide eyed with appall. Surely, he could not be so blind as to not see the danger he was in? That, she was certain of this to her very core, the galaxy was in if the spirit succeeded….or escaped.

Running on instinct, she was unable to grasp in return the effects of her actions or his perception of it. All there was, was stopping the spirit. The spirit who in a blind rage hurled itself at the person in a desperate bid to regain a physical form. The person swung at it uselessly, lightsaber humming and sizzling through incorporeal darkness to accomplish nothing.

She raced toward the spirit and the person, imbuing the already Force willed limbs of her body to move faster, respond quicker than naturally came to them and placing herself between them as she attempted to erect an energy ward around them a second time while using the Force to push the person back and away from the spirit to relative safety, ignoring the immense pain the act caused her.

The spirit roared in renewed fury, too weak to batter past the wildly fluctuating shield. It swirled and twisted like aerosolized poison. Stoked into absolute rage the spirit flew at them, intending to consume what it could not break to accomplish its goal. She fought against it, willing every micron of power she could garner into a blast of power to force the spirit back and physically fumbling to grasp the person to drag him away.

But the person roared with his own rage and struck out with his lightsaber. She tried to dodge, missing the brunt of the unexpected whirling attack but the saber still caught her, sliding with a sickening sizzle against the bare flesh of her body’s ribcage, slicing through skin, muscle and bone to gash into her lungs. Suddenly she couldn’t breathe properly, feeling an entirely different sort of pain, one she hadn’t felt since beyond memory. She flailed, physically and in the Force in confusion, stumbling away from the person, as she grasped the wound in her side. She knew that the Force could heal the wound but what grip she had over it had fled, violently leaving her…and the person she had been trying to protect completely exposed.

But this time the person, his expression one of astonishment that she had managed to dodge the strike at all, seemed to have regained enough of his own control to push back as the spirit tried again to force its way inside him and take possession. She could feel the person’s deep fear of the spirit fueling the gout of power he flung at the darkside entity.  The spirit was repelled once again to swirl and writhe above them in undefinable fury at being thwarted by not just her but him as well but she felt that even in his attack that the person’s fear had strengthened the specter, feeding its power however minutely.

She could do little now but try to stay alive, to even draw breath, too wounded body and spirit and too Force Exhausted to even attempt any sort of offensive. The person, apparently satisfied that the spirit was held at bay for the moment turned back, raised his red bladed lightsaber to deliver a killing blow to her. A blow she was far to weakened to avoid. Though it mattered little, she could feel the eminent coming of death from her ravaged state and the wound he had already inflicted. She would die soon anyway without outside intervention.

But the angered spirit cared little for either of their intentions.

It pulsed with rage, and gathered what power it could muster causing purple streaks of Force Lightning to snap and crackle like whips through its bulk for a final devastating strike.

_I will not be denied!_ It railed with telepathic fury in a ‘voice’ that she somehow knew she was all too well acquainted with as it rained a storm of purple Force lightning down on them both with abandon. All either of them could do was dodge and attempt to deflect the assault. _I will not die. I will not be your trophy. I will not be contained. I will not be controlled. I will have what I desire. You will not stop me._

Fearful but quicker than she, the person avoided the onslaught, both narrowly saving himself and feeding the entity further as he struck back with a lash of blue Force Lightning of his own that the roiling cloud of miasmic darkside simply absorbed into itself. She desperately wanted to communicate with the person, to tell them they were only feeding the being, making it stronger but not as fortunate as he, the Force Lightning being hurled like javelins from the entity found her.

They raked over her, wracking her already battered body and spirit with renewed, if intimately familiar convulsive pain, leaving her silently screaming, stunned into a near stupor and sending her heart into an erratic thump. She had suffered such torture before she knew instinctively, at the mercy of this same entity, had learned to use it herself once, could have blocked the attack had she not been utterly incapable of using the Force at the moment. Though how she knew it or why she could not have said.  

“You are nothing more than the forgotten remnant of a lost age,” the person railed back at the entity. “A shadow, a ghost incapable of true power.”

The entity _laughed_ at him as she painfully and slowly attempted to regain some sort of motor control, to regain the faint sense of reason she possessed. The very foundation of the facility began to tremble and shake.

_My life spans millennia. My ascendance is inevitable. A day, a year, a millennium. It matters not. I have the patience of stone and the will of stars. Your striving is insignificant. You will submit_ , the entity placidly commented, seemingly not at all fazed by its continued rebuttal of its goal despite her _knowing_ differently. It was as terrified as the person was. _Or die._

Abruptly the entire structure around them began to tear itself apart. Rended from the bedrock by the entity. The entire thing was going to collapse in on them. The entity rushed at the person, disregarding her as too broken to worry about…or too afraid she would rally despite her impending death to stop him. The action was sufficient to send the person reeling to avoid the assumed attack, which was really a feint, a distraction to give the entity an opportunity to escape at the same moment that the ceiling began to give way, casting durasteel plating down on them.

She struggled to rise, to move before she was crushed as the entity whisked past the person who had to devote his attention to deflecting falling debris to avoid the same fate. But he was not quick enough, was still too weak from his previous exertions with the Force to successfully deflect them all. A particularly larger piece of ceiling fell from directly and unavoidably above him. He would be killed on impact.

Somewhere, somehow fueled by pure desperation to survive and protect the person—despite his obvious affinity with the darkside, one she did not know if had been chosen or wrought upon him—she managed to seize a dreg of power, sending it coursing like lava through mind and body and _burning_ all it touched in its wake to _push_ the falling chunk of durasteel and rock. It was barely enough but the debris fell just short of its intended destination, missing the person by a hairs-breadth.

However, her all consuming effort to save the person made her fail to notice another hunk of falling debris that came crashing down on her with a reverberating boom. It missed most of her body but it crushed her left leg. She screamed, pain blind.

The person saw it happen, turned to flee, to save himself only to have an unnoticed skull sized lump of rock, careen off the side of his head. He slumped to the ground, instantly unconscious from the blow.

The end seemed inevitable.

She would not die here. She could not. Even now she could _feel_ the entity growing more distant, fleeing to who knew where so that he might recoup his strength. The galaxy was in terrible danger. He must not regain his power. Nothing would survive. She _must_ not die.

Somehow, she must find a way.

A distant, comfortingly familiar echo of a voice lost to time and memory seemed to speak to her. _The Force is with you, always._

The Force was with her. Even if she could not reach it, it was there. There was no death, there was the Force.

Working on innate instinct, on training engrained so deep that it was as much a part of her as breathing, she ignored the collapsing confines of what was intended to be their tomb and reached not out….but in. Seeking a place of calm and balance, one impervious to the pain of body or spirit, devoid of fear and beyond death itself. It came, painfully and fitfully—but that did not matter—all that mattered was that it had. It would not last, the power of the Force had no bounds but her body did…but it would be enough.

With it, she suffused herself with the Force, drawing on it to sustain what remained of her life, ignoring the agony wrought on body and spirit, and to give her the strength required. She willed the unbearable weight of rock and durasteel to move and it lifted, rising as effortlessly as a feather off of her broken body to be brushed aside. She willed that broken body to move, to function beyond its capability, to rise and walk on shattered bone, to breath air through gashed and seared lung, to see past double vision and micro-spasms left in the wake of Force Lightning, to wield the Force despite a spirit that felt torn and bleeding.

Slowly, with great effort, she shuffled up and toward the unconscious form of the person. Used the Force to heave his weight upright and throw one arm around her neck. To bare the burden and seek escape from the crumbling tomb for them both. She would not leave him. Darkside or not he was defenseless and wounded, even as she was. And… there was something about him that called to her.

With deliberate movement, gained inch by excruciating inch, she dragged them both from the room into the corridor beyond, traversing past and over fallen debris as required to reach the next room and hopefully the exit. What she found there horrified her in ways she would never be able to describe, threatened to shatter her tenuous and hard won control of power. Shattered cylinders like her own, dead bodies of other sentients cast out of them, some few cylinders still intact, inert forms drifting within that were utterly non-existent to her Force Perception. Blank holes that denied what her eyes saw, even as the area of the room in which they were contained collapsed. It was only then, as their lives were extinguished and their deaths buffeted sickeningly against her senses that she knew with any certainty that they had ever been alive at all…whatever held them apart from the Force destroyed along with them.

Horrified, stretched too thin, too late to save them and waning quickly she pressed on, breathless in mind and body, for an exit. Blindly, guided only by the Force, she found it, struggling with her burden up the ramp and out onto the surface of a dead moon whose atmosphere raged with out of control Force energy subjecting her and her charge to its mercy even as the ground beneath quaked and the facility behind finally succumbed, collapsing in on itself entirely.

Out of immediate danger, she felt some of her grasp flee her again. She would collapse herself soon. Seeing what she knew was a ship, that resonated a faint familiarity to her despite not meeting any configuration she would have recalled had she been able to recall it in the first place, she struggled against the raging storm toward it.

There she gently released her burden, tucking the person she had dragged from the now collapsed facility under one long angular wing so that he would be shielded from the worst of the storm. He would survive now. He was injured, weak but not dying. When he woke, he might attempt to find her again, to finish what he had attempted below. She could not stay. Must not. She must survive. The entity was out there and he too would return, and there was no doubt he would kill her. She must not die, the galaxy was in danger.

She must find her own shelter, must hide and somehow seek help.

She stumbled, naked and wounded, moving only because the Force sustained her, out into the raging storm. She found what shelter she could, barricaded herself behind all the protection she could, wound what healing she could through dying cells, pushed back what agony she could manage, tried to hide herself within the Force and then expended _everything_ else in one last desperate pulse of need. Then she succumbed to oblivion, to await aid or death…as the Force willed.


	2. 2

CHAPTER 2

 

_Secret Jedi Base, Shedu Maad, Transitory Mists in the Hapes Cluster_

 

Grand Master of the New Jedi Order, Luke Skywalker, took no notice of his meager surroundings. The dust gray walls of poured plastoid and the few yellow-aged sturdiplast bits of furniture that sufficed to provide him with living quarters in the abandoned mine turned secret base deep in the Transitory Mist of the Hapes Cluster might as well have not existed. Luke was too immersed in the Force.

He spent more and more time there now…ever since Mara, his beloved wife…had died…been murdered by Darth Caedus. In part, it was out of necessity as he probed the future actively seeking to be within the Force at the same time Caedus was, to see what he saw and then cloud it, influence what the Sith Lord who had once been his beloved nephew believed the future to be in an effort to keep him from seeing the real one. The one where it was his twin sister, Jaina, who would pursue him and not Luke in a bid for revenge as Luke was leading him to believe. 

Luke knew that of all the Jedi, it was he alone that had the power to stop Caedus. But every time he searched out through the Force, any path that began with Luke pursuing him…ended in perpetually darkness…for him…for the galaxy. No matter how well intentioned he began his visions always ended with him killing Caedus, not to save the galaxy from the war that he was already raining down on it and the complete devastation he would bring if he remained alive, but out of revenge for Mara’s death.

Mara. His darling, beloved, spitfire. Wife. Mother of his son. The one person he’d given his entire soul to and now all he had left were a few trinkets and a hole where his heart used to be.

He had been in far worse shape than he was now. Before he hadn’t even been able to move, to breathe, to make any sort of choice—frozen by heartache too profound to ever be defined. Luke had lost and done much in the years since he’d been the naïve wet-behind-the-ears farm boy from Tatooine plucked up by the ‘crazy’ old hermit Ben Kenobi and whisked off to a life he could never have imagined. The toll of it was written in the deeply shadowed eyes, the hollow cheeks and hints of gray at his temples that stared back at him in the mirror every day, especially of late, reminding him he was no longer the young man he had been--able to carry any weight regardless of how crushing. Before he’d lost loves, family, friends, homes, been tempted by and for a time turned to the darkside, faced dangers that defied belief or reason and always he had bounced back. But Caedus had found the one thing that could destroy him and done it. Killing Mara.

Luke hadn’t just fallen apart…he’d given up…he’d wanted to die to be with her, to become one with the Force..and Mara.

He had been able to let go of his grief, after his son, Ben-named for that same old hermit, had taken up his mother’s mantle and verbally abused him into realizing that not only would Mara have not wanted him to fall apart as he had done, that she would have beaten him about the head for leaving the Order and the galaxy without the Grand Master they so desperately needed right now,  that she’d have beat him senseless for wanting to die. Had reminded him of the one thing that had been as strong a driving force in his life as his love for Mara…his sense of duty. The same sense of duty that had molded the course of his existence and had, more times than he could count, saved his life.

He’d been able to step from under the grief, to not let it consume him but it was still there. To be who everyone needed him to be. Luke Skywalker, Grand Master of the Jedi, Republic Legend and Master of the Impossible. Perhaps he could be Luke Skywalker, human—later.

Caedus had long withdrawn himself from his probing of the future and still Luke sat on the floor of his chamber, legs folded beneath him, hands resting placidly in his lap in meditation as he reached out through the Force, touched it, caressed it, let it flow through him  out past the bounds of the starless Transitory Mists that made Shedu Maad feel like it existed mournfully alone in the universe to the greater galaxy beyond—to the life and energy that flowed through everything, seeking the serenity it had once been so easy for him to reach. He still could. He still must. But it took him a great deal longer to accomplish after his sessions of ‘jamming’ Caedus’s perception of the future. He didn’t search for more than that.

The Force had ceased to reveal anything to him anymore, beyond the immediate moment, since Mara’s death, as though it was refusing to answer him out of a deep disappointment. Perhaps it was. He had lashed out when he had believed—when everything had seemed to prove--it had been Lumiya who had killed Mara, had killed her, succumbing to his desire for revenge in the very moment he had cut her down. He’d fallen blindly into the trap she’d laid for him, sacrificing her own life to spur him to it under false pretenses and damned him…and possibly the entire Order…in the process.

He could still feel the taint of the darkside in his soul from it and that—along with the distant darkness that existed beyond Caedus—that he brought down on the galaxy that Luke could not describe or define--above all else swayed him back to action, to being the person everyone needed him to be, regardless of the personal costs to himself and away from any attempt against Caedus himself…the temptation would be too great….even for him.

Mara would have been mortified. Not that he had been grief-stricken enough to want revenge for her death but that he’d touched the darkside in doing so. He would carry the guilt and regret--and the taint--of that for the rest of his life.

Luke reached a bit further, seeking, searching and found what he sought. The serenity he sought came to him. It seeped into his being and filled the places that trembled with uncertainty and turmoil. The Force might not give him what he wanted, but it always gave him what he needed. That he had learned long ago.

Luke allowed himself a quiet, inaudible sigh as he regained his center and began to withdraw from the meditation, pulling back his Force sense within himself. Only to be struck with violent suddenness by a wave of disturbance so great it made him physically reel back despite the fact he was firmly planted on the floor. He caught himself on one hand, gasping for air. Something was beyond terribly wrong. He hadn’t felt a disturbance in the Force that great since….never. Not once in his entire life had he been struck that fiercely with the shockwave a great disturbance in the Force caused.

He knew immediately it wasn’t death. Nothing had died, it wasn’t destruction. It was…impossible as it seemed....birth? But birth of what? Whatever it was it was as though the Force had exploded in the same nanosecond with something that was both immensely darkside and lightside. If Luke were ever asked to describe it to a non-Force User he’d have had to explain it as a white fountain and a black hole coming into existence at the same time, in the same place, with equal, massive intensity.

Luke wasn’t the only one who had felt it. He could feel every force-sensitive on Shedu Maad come boiling out of the mining facility’s hastily converted chambers like a nest of upset lizard-ants. It was no surprise. Every Force sensitive in the galaxy would have felt it.

Luke forced himself to get control, to regulate his breathing and stand up off the floor even though his equilibrium and his spinning head would have been much happier if he’d stayed down there. His stomach tried to turn inside out on him and he fought it as he made his feet behave and stick to the floor because at the moment they very much wanted not to.

He made an attempt to shuffle toward the rusted door, fingers reaching to hit the release when the second wave hit. As strong as the first but different. The first had been overwhelming force power. This one had one defining feature. Pain.

Luke felt it tear through him like a lightning strike and he cried out, collapsing to his knees. He heard others who had been stirred by the disturbance scream in agony, unable to stave off the worse of the onslaught. Han’s strident and mildly angry when he was worried cry of alarm cut through the inarticulate wails of pain that wracked the Force sensitives somewhere out in the corridors as he tried to figure out what was going on—blessedly unable to feel what they felt. Others, the raised voices of other non-force sensitives in the complex, families or those allied with the Jedi in exile added themselves to Han’s.

Luke fought against the pain. It was unlike anything he’d ever felt before. And Luke had faced down everything from Ancient disembodied Sith Lords like Exar Kun and the Emperor himself to the Yuuzhan Vong. He would have had an easier time of suppressing the sense of pain if didn’t come with the greatest sense of dread and doom Luke had ever felt. Not the darkness he had seen beyond Caedus (though it was somehow connected to Caedus of that he was certain) something else, something born of pure evil.  And it was viciously assaulting the lightside presence that had burst into existence with it. But on the heels of that pain came something more, something totally unexpected and so desperately needed, wanted, sought after that Luke’s entire spirit felt electrified even as it was ravaged by agony.

A shaft of such profound hope that how every corner of the galaxy was not blazing with light was beyond his comprehension. It called to mind something Master Yoda had once said to him during his training on Dagobah… _luminous beings are we_.

Wave after wave of pain washed over him as he hauled himself off his knees and struggled out the door and into the corridor, focusing instead through the pain on that brilliant beam of hope. Luke had wanted the Force to answer him, to give him more than simply the ability to press on. It had answered…profoundly.

Many of those affected were not as lucky as he, a number were sprawled unconscious in the corridor and Luke suspected more still had been struck dumb before they’d ever made it out of their rooms. The sound of crying younglings, the force-sensitive children too young to truly begin training but just as vulnerable to the disturbance in the Force as the most seasoned of the Jedi echoed off the plastoid walls. The corridor was chaos as the non-sensitives tried to contain their panic and help the force-sensitives, unsure what to do…and helpless to assist. There was nothing any of them could do but ride it out.

He felt a welter of deep concern for his son, Ben, whose extraordinary gift of Force Empath was so strong that he’d been unable to bear the pain and suffering of the victims of the Yuuzhan Vong war and withdrawn from the Force completely as a small child.  It had taken years to draw him back to it and teach him to shield himself against it. This—whatever it was—would affect him incredibly.

Another wave of agony struck Luke, almost pitching him back to his knees even as Han barked demandingly, “Luke what the hell is going on!?,” only to cry “Leia!” as Luke’s twin sister—now a Jedi in her own right--yelled in pain beside him, hit by the same waves of agony the rest of the Jedi were being pummeled under. Her knees buckled and Han scrambled to catch his falling wife, pulling her close against him protectively. Luke kept his feet…barely.

“A disturbance…in…the Force,” Luke managed to pant out to his best friend and brother in law by way of some sort of explanation. “Great power. Dark. Light.” He couldn’t manage more than that, words failed him.

Such pain. Such unimaginable pain. As though the lightside presence were being ripped apart from the inside, from the spirit out. Not by the darkside one though its assault against it was not helping….something…had happened when they erupted into the Force. Something had gone horribly, horribly wrong...it was dying.

It took every lesson of control Luke had ever learned not to fly into panic. To have that radiant flash of hope blaze into existence and then realize it was being torn away to leave only the crushing darkness that had come with it, in the same moment was almost more than he could take.

“It’s dying,” Leia muttered despairingly, holding on to her husband for support. Luke knew she would have felt the soul bolstering hope that came with the deep dread just as he did.

“What’s dying?” Han demanded to know. He knew ‘Jedi Trouble’ as he put it when he saw it… but what the trouble was he couldn’t comprehend. For that matter neither could Luke.

Abruptly the waves of agony cut off. All sense of the lightside presence disappeared like a snuffed candle flame, disappearing from his sense of the Force completely. Leaving Luke feeling utterly bereft. The darkside presence however remained, terrifyingly dark and foreboding. Someone, Cilghal—the Mon Calamari Jedi Master and healer, one of his first students--Luke realized, gasped, “No!” vocalizing what he felt.

Luke refused to believe what his senses were telling him. It couldn’t be, The Force wouldn’t produce something full of such light only to allow it to be snuffed out an instant later. But he couldn’t quantify the sudden existence of such a massive force of darkness either. The Force did not create things that were of the darkside, the darkside was a corruption of the light. It made no sense to him.

“Luke?” Han insisted again even as Kyp Durron came, all but dragging himself as he used the wall for support, toward them.

“What was that? It. Them,” he wanted to know. Luke didn’t have an answer. He leaned against the wall, letting it hold him up and shook his head, waving one hand for silence, for everyone to stop asking questions to which he had no answers so that he could find some.

“Them? It went from an ‘it’ to a ‘them’?” Han asked worriedly, eyes casting about for someone who’d give him an answer.

“Shhh,” Leia urged getting her legs wobbly beneath her again though she still leaned into her husband for support. “Luke is trying to concentrate.”

Han impatiently obeyed, clamping his lips together in a thin line.

“I will begin collecting the unconscious and badly shaken and move them to the medbay to come around,” Cilghal said. “There is no injury to anyone. Except perhaps bumps and bruises from falling. It was only the intensity that overwhelmed.”

“I’ll help,” Kyp offered as he started shuffling his shaky way in her direction.

One large black fish eye swiveled to survey him critically. “You will not help, you will be the first I collect.” It only got the salmon pink Calamarian a look of ire and stubbornness daring her to try.

 Luke ignored them all confident in Kyp and Cilghal’s ability to deal with the ruckus around them. He shut his eyes, reaching out through the Force probing for the lightside presence that had suddenly disappeared, carefully and meticulously searching for it. But he got nothing. No matter how hard he tried, it was like the presence had simply ceased to exist.

Sadly Luke ceased his probing, and gave a quiet sigh.

“It’s not…” Leia asked.

“I can’t find it,” he admitted.

“Then the darkness won,” Leia said softly.

Luke shook his head again. “No. That’s not the impression I got. The darkness was attacking it but it wasn’t what was causing the most…damage.” ‘Damage’ seemed too small a word for what had been happening to the lightside presence but it was the only word he knew to use for it.

 “What ‘it’? What darkness?” Han demanded again.

“I don’t…” Luke stumbled for a way to explain what he did know which was precious little. “All of a sudden there was a disturbance in the Force. A light and a dark side presence, each of incredible power that just….came into being… out of nowhere…like the Force itself suddenly created them….or unleashed them.” ‘Unleashed’ somehow sounded more appropriate. But how either presences could have existed prior to the moment Luke had felt them and him or any of the other Jedi not have known before now seemed…impossible. “I don’t know why. I don’t know where. I don’t even know what. They were just there and then something went horribly wrong with the lightside one. The darkside attacked the light but it wasn’t what was killing it.” He hesitated for a moment before he added the rest of his scant knowledge. “I don’t know how or why but Caedus is connected to it.”

“I felt it too,” Leia said mournfully as Han’s face contorted into a visage of betrayed anger and pain. If Luke had been devastated by the things Caedus had done, Leia and Han were equally as hurt by it. Caedus had once been their son Jacen after all. They’d already lost one son and now they had lost another and might lose their daughter in the effort to stop the former. The entire Skywalker clan was being torn apart.

“You’d think the Force could be a little more specific!” Han bit.

“The light is gone but that darkness. It’s still there,” Leia whispered burying her face against her husband’s chest, who tightened his arms around her further in protection. “It so…terrible. What has he done? How could even he do something like this?”

It broke Luke’s heart that his sister couldn’t even bring herself to say her eldest son’s name, either of them.

“I don’t think he did,” he said. For some reason he felt that Caedus was involved but not that he had done this. He didn’t say that it immediately occurred to Luke that even if Caedus had not done this that he had somehow been the one to…open the door, directly or indirectly.

“Then what did?” Han asked. Luke shook his head again about to repeat that he didn’t know but he was sharply cut off as a Force Call of extreme power and focus came roaring through the Force aimed with laser bolt accuracy at anything that could even remotely be considered ‘of the light’.

A new round of crys and yells broke out from the Jedi and younglings. Luke included. But these were of hopeful urgency.

“Now what?” Han said in exasperation.

The Call rushed through Luke and away, rippling out like the sonic echoes of a deep space low band transponder and then doubled back as though being pulled and as it was pulled back toward him like a ship in hyperspace he was pulled toward it, like two magnets that had gotten too close to each other. It recognized him as the strongest lightside prescense it had come in contact with and it would not be denied, could not be.

All of them were spurred to action by it but Luke wasn’t just compelled to obey it… he got the entire message as an inarticulate pulse of information. The call was both desperate confused distress cry and screaming warning that made Luke’s blood freeze in his veins.

The lightside presence—confused to the point of mindlessness Luke realized and reacting on pure instinct--was alive…barely…but quickly dying. It had used the same technique that Luke had, ironically, learned from his son Ben who had learned it from Jacen before he had become Caedus, to hide itself within the Force. More over it was a person and he knew exactly where it was. And it wanted him…and every other lightsider in the galaxy to know that the darkness that had come with it wasn’t just terrible danger. It was complete oblivion with will and intent. One planet wasn’t in danger, not just one planetary system, not even just the New Republic. Every living thing in the galaxy down to the last cell was in imminent danger of utter destruction.

Then the presence disappeared into the Force, hiding itself once more from the darkside entity …. and Caedus.

The Force itself responded to the Call filling Luke not only with the overwhelming compulsion for him go to the lightside being that the Call itself had wrought but giving him  crystal clear clarity. It had to be him that heeded the lightside being’s Call and quickly. Their hope was still alive…if Luke could get there in time. Furthermore, he knew with complete certainty—for good or ill-- _everything_ had changed…forever.

“Hey! Where is everybody going?” Han yelled as Luke shook himself back to the present moment. No one heeded him. The force-sensitives were all in varying degrees of compelled flight, all of them driven by the Force Call to act on it with an almost irresistible urgency. Even without the Force’s insistence that it had to be him to answer the Call, Luke seriously doubted he could have resisted for any length of time. The Call had been too powerful.

“Stop them,” he called to anyone who would heed him. Han gaped. “They don’t realize what they’re doing.”

“Neither do you!” he said seizing Luke’s arm and dragging him backward. He already had a durasteel grip on his wife who was blindly attempting to wriggle free and insisting vehemently. “I have to go. It’s alive.” It was only then that Luke realized he was following the others who were being herded back away from the exits by the non-force sensitives of the Order to prevent them doing something reckless—bent on only one objective. Get there. Now. So much for resisting long enough to get his head on straight.

The only thing that stalled him long enough to realize he had to get control of himself was how he had unconsciously intended to get there. He had been about to rush to the lightside being’s call, to board one of the ground shuttles and arrow straight for _The Jade Shadow_ out of instinct… his deceased wife’s beloved ship. The ship he hadn’t yet been capable of stepping foot on for fear of coming apart at the seams. _The Jade Shadow_ had been all put a part of her.

Luke fiercely fought the compulsion and willed himself mightily to stay put, to think and focus. Yoda would have whacked him soundly on the skull with his walking stick for losing control like this. Luke’s will won by a slim margin, assuaged only because Luke knew he was going just as soon as he had a grip on himself.

Luke could Force Call and had in the past, to call a conclave of the Order when they had been scattered across half the galaxy by battle. He knew how powerful it’s influence was. It was an exceptionally hard skill to master and took a massive amount of energy to accomplish, directing it instead of just flinging it out into the universe at anything that could hear it took great skill.

That the lightside being had managed it, while on the brink of death, confused, mindless and using Force Stealth—another exceedingly taxing skill only a few Jedi were capable of mastering and fewer still could wield with such skill that it hid them from everyone but the select few they wanted to be visible to—was a testament to the being’s sheer power in the Force. Not potential, power.

Whoever, whatever, they were…they were at the very least a match for Luke himself and they knew exactly how to use it but the use had been raw and wild out of desperation, a blast instead of a gentle current and the effect continued, rippling out like rings in a disturbed pool. The others would not be able to get control without help.

When he had gotten himself firmly under control Luke gathered his wits about him, pushing aside the compulsion and projected his will and his voice with the Force over the still fervently determined force-sensitives.

“Control,” he called, firmly. “Be calm”. His voice rang out like a clarion call, washing over the rest of them in a gentle, calm wave. Luke disliked doing it since it bent them to his will, removing their ability to choose but it was necessary…just as the Force Call had been necessary however forceful it had been. “Focus.” The wave reached the least force call affected first, the ones strongest in the Force, forcibly cooling their fervent desire to _go_ and allowing them to regain control. They in turn picked it up and projected their own will and calming auras to those around them, magnifying the effect until people stopped trying to _go_ and stood still if anxious and confused. Luke didn’t blame them, that had been an intense experience even for him.

“ _Now_ would someone tell me what is going on?” Han pipped up loudly, his expression one of confused annoyance as he slowly released his hold on Leia, who had calmed and was in control again.

Luke could feel her embarrassment at herself. He came closer to them and placed his hand on his sister’s shoulder and squeezed gently in understanding.

“It’s okay. I felt it too. We all did,” he consoled her. Leia gave him a small smile and the sense of embarrassment abated.

“I didn’t!” Han protested.

“We’ve been…I’ve been called,” Luke explained in brief.

“You’ve been…by who?” Han pressed.

“Gather everyone outside,” Luke said. “I’ll explain…everything I can.”

“Now wait just a minute…” Han began but Luke cut him off.

“You wanted the Force to be more specific. You got it, Han. Profoundly.”

Han hesitated as though he were going to protest again about having to wait for an answer. Patience had never been one of Han’s virtues. Persistence however was.

 “Go,” Luke insisted. “We haven’t much time.”

Han huffed. “Alright fine,” he assented and, his arm still hovering protectively in the vicinity of his wife, turned to go. Leia cast a questioning glance back at her brother, asking if she should stay or go with Han. Luke gave a brief nod and nudged his chin after Han. Leia smiled faintly at him again and let Han herd her along protectively.

“Dad!” came a cry from out in the crowd. Luke turned to see his fourteen year old son, Ben, flame red hair to match his mother’s setting him apart easily as he slipped and wove around people to get to Luke.

 “Ben!” Luke called to alert him to his location in the crowd though he didn’t need to, they could have found each other in a hurricane with ease.

“Dad, what happened? What was that?” his young son asked, punching through the crowd to reach them finally.

“First, are you alright?” he asked worriedly as he transferred the hand that had been on Leia’s shoulder to Ben’s, concerned that with his powerful Force Empathy gifts that the experience might have disturbed him more than the others. The pain alone had almost consumed Luke’s ability to control his response to it.  

“I’m fine Dad. I blocked most of it, the way Jac….the way I was taught,” Ben promised him and only narrowly avoiding saying ‘Jacen’. Once Ben had been apprenticed to his cousin, who had been the only one that seemed able to lead the boy back to his connection with the Force. Jacen’s betrayal and the knowledge that it had been he who had killed his mother—which Ben had been the one to discover—had struck him deeply.  “What was that?”

“Be calm, son. Go join the others outside and I will explain,” Luke assured him. “The Force is with us.”

That seemed to mollify both Ben and he needn’t explain what he meant, Ben like all other Jedi, understood. The younger Skywalker breathed a sigh of relief and smiled, confident in his father’s ability to handle whatever it was that was happening, Luke just hoped he was right.  Ben started to turn to go and then stopped.

“Dad?” he asked. “Everything is about to change isn’t it? I can feel it.”

Luke leveled a weary smile at his son proud of his son’s astuteness. “Yes. I believe it already has.”

Ben gave a short nod, accepting Luke’s agreement but his face and his feelings betrayed what Luke wouldn’t show. The worry that the change wouldn’t be for the better. But whatever came, they’d face it together…all of them.

Then Ben blinked and tilted his head a little and his worry seemed to fade for no discernible reason to Luke. In fact his worry had taken the copilot’s seat to…quiet but happy relief? He smiled , and it was a brighter smile than Luke had seen his son give since Mara had died.

“What is it Ben?” Luke urged curious to know what had provoked the emotional flip-flop. Ben quickly shook his head.

“Later Dad,” he promised. “It’s not important right now. We’re running out of time.”

He was right of course and so Luke didn’t press the issue but he still wondered about it as he fell in step behind his son to go explain what even he wasn’t exactly sure of to the rest of the Order.

 

 

***

“Luke, this is insane,” Han insisted as he sat in the pilot’s seat flipping switches as he warmed up the _Millennium Falcon_ for takeoff in direct contradiction of his words. “Look I get it. The will of the Force and all that but hopping over to Centax-2 and not expecting,” his voice hitched briefly, “…Caedus… to rip you apart as soon as he knows you’re there?”

Luke spared hardly a glance for his old friend, he could feel the worry coming from Han over what Luke planned to do but he couldn’t and wouldn’t let it sway him. He’d explained all he knew to the Order and calmed their concerns as best he could but he had not been willing to waste any time arguing the risk of Luke being the one to answer the call. Their answers lay with the one who had sent it and they had very little time. The Force had demanded it of him, not of anyone else.

“He won’t notice,” Luke assured him as he moved to sit down in the co-pilot’s seat. There was a half-second pause before he did it, the old memory of who should have been sitting in that chair, roaring complaints at both of them, would always be a part of him. It had been years and still Chewbacca’s loss stayed with them, the pain of it had ebbed but he was still deeply missed.

“Yeah, yeah I know. You’ll hide us in the Force. But don’t forget he can do the same thing.”

“I haven’t, I assure you,” Luke promised and he hadn’t. On the contrary, that was foremost on his mind. He had no illusions that he would be the only one looking for the person who had called to them. Caedus would be too. The dark entity, at least for now, would not. It loomed in the back of Luke’s senses forebodingly but it was too wounded itself to do more than retreat and recoupe. After that however….

 Artoo came into the cockpit with a sharp whistle and trundled to Luke’s side. “System check done short round?” Han asked of the little loyal droid. 

Artoo let out a string of indignant whirrs that suggested that he was insulted that Han had even had to ask and then swiveled his optical sensor toward Luke and gave him a low soft beep. The loyal little astromech had been with Luke so long that it wasn’t much effort to figure out what was distressing him even without Threepio to translate. But then Luke had never really needed the protocol droid to tell him what Artoo was saying, he’d always been able to tell what the little droid meant even if he didn’t know the exact words.

“Don’t worry Artoo. We’ll be careful,” he promised, absent-mindedly reaching out and patting him on the dome affectionately. The astromech answered with a series of accepting chirps but he was still worried.

“I’m with him Luke,” Han said, fingers ticking over controls without Han consciously looking out of intimate familiarity. “This is an insane mission. I know you’ve gotta do it but it’s still crazy.”

“You didn’t have to come,” Luke pointed out. And he hadn’t, Luke had been willing to steel himself and take _The Jade Shadow_ , had fully intended to until Han had insisted that they take the _Falcon_ instead. Luke knew he’d done as much out of practicality as a desire to spare Luke the pain of stepping on that ship and seeing Mara in every line and curve. For that, Luke was immeasurably grateful. He just wasn’t ready. One day….but not today.  

That the Falcon lacked as much by way of medical equipment was of little concern. Luke was a skilled force-healer in his own right, though he fully admitted Cilghal excelled at it far better—for her it was as natural as breathing--and there was a collapsible Bacta tank, stored in one of the storage compartments for emergencies. If all else failed Han had a cryogenic hibernation tube for last-ditch efforts…even if he’d used it to store perishable contraband in his smuggling days. If they couldn’t keep the person they were going to save alive with all that…they couldn’t keep them alive.

“Sure I did. Someone’s got to make sure you don’t get yourself killed playing hero,” Han said jokingly though the dangers to him were no less serious than to Luke. Caedus wanted to kill Luke certainly but Han and Leia both had warrants out for their arrests, warrants issued by their son in retribution for their interference with his plans. If they were caught, Luke didn’t want to think about what Caedus would do to his father. “You can’t possibly think this is going to work. You said it yourself. All the Jedi felt it. Whatever that lightside thing…”

“Person,” Luke corrected automatically. “It’s a person.”

“Alright…whatever this _person_ is….they’re dying. It will take a day to navigate your way out of the Mists and another two in hyperspace to get there. You can’t believe you are going to get there in time.”

“I can pilot us out of the Mist in half that,” Luke reminded him. Han knew it and Luke knew he knew it. “The Force is…”

“…With you. I know. But shouldn’t we be more worried about the dark thing that came with it? You know the one you so calmly said this person warned you about that wants to destroy everything in existence? And don’t you think Caedus is going to be looking for this person too?”

“I know he will. Which is another reason why I have to get there first,” Luke said. “We don’t know what that darkside entity is. That person laying somewhere on Centax-2 dying has those answers.”

“You hope,” Han countered. He sighed but he never lost step with Luke. “And I still say you’re crazy.”

 “If I’m crazy and you’re going with me what does that make you?” Luke countered.

“Just as crazy as you. Just like old times,” Han answered. It elicited a chuckle from Luke despite himself.

“Did you actually just laugh?” Han asked in surprise. Luke hadn’t laughed in a very long time. Not even a little.

Luke blinked. He hadn’t expected to. “I guess I did.”

Han let his hands drop into his lap and all but stared at Luke, narrowing his eyes shrewdly.

“You’re excited about this aren’t you?”

Luke raised his eyebrows. How Han had come to that conclusion was beyond him but still he was reminded of Ben’s odd remark earlier. What were they seeing that he wasn’t?

“I don’t think excited is the right word.”

“Yes, you are. You don’t need Jedi senses to see it either.”

“Alright,” Luke conceded. “I suppose I am eager to get underway. We have a person to save and you didn’t feel it Han. The pain that person is in… it’s indescribable.”

“You’re not exactly the type who gets excited about people dying and in pain. That’s not it. There’s something else isn’t there? Something you didn’t tell everyone else?”

“I didn’t have to, they felt it too, Han.”

Han gave him a pointed look. Luke sighed and relented.

“There was this moment, during all of it, that broke though the agony and confusion,” he struggled to put it into words Han would understand.  “It felt like being electrified.” Han gave him a dubious look. No, Luke supposed being electrified didn’t sound like a good thing to someone who hadn’t felt it. “I don’t know how to describe it. It was like….being lost in a dark maze with no way to find the way out and suddenly someone floods the whole thing with light.”

“You mean hope? This thing filled you with hope even though you were being wracked with unspeakable agony at the same time? I’m not even going to mention the level of weird that approaches.”

“Yes. It was hope and right now that hope is laying on a dead moon, dying themselves so let’s get going.”

Han shook his head. “You seemed to get more of whatever this person was trying to communicate. What do you think it means? Are they going to somehow pull us out of this mess we’re in with Caedus and the Galactic Alliance? That doesn’t seem real likely with that ‘dark entity’ that came along for the ride but…”

Luke almost flinched. He hadn’t said that and he didn’t want Han to get his hopes up. “End the war you mean? You know the Force isn’t a magic cure all, Han. I honestly don’t know. But… there’s something…”

“At this point I’ll take something over nothing,” Han answered as he moved from the pilot’s seat and waved possession of the controls over to Luke. “She’s all yours hotshot. Just don’t scratch the paint.”

Luke slipped into Han’s place and reached for the com button to request departure clearance.

“This is the _Falcon_ , requesting clearance for takeoff.”

Once a haven of Hapan Pirates, the Transitory Mists were so thick and confusing, littered with planetoids and derelict hulks in the vision obscuring gas clouds that it made the use of hyperspace…or a preplanned flight plan…impossible. You had to fly by sight and in realspace or risk ending up bashed to bits or becoming one with a mass of rock and metal. It was why Luke had chosen this location as the safe haven for the Order when Caedus had intended to whip them out if they would not obey… you couldn’t sneak up on them here. They’d have advance warning...something they hadn’t had on Ossus or Endor.

But if Caedus ever found the location… he’d have a strike team ready to pounce on them before they could evacuate. They would just know he was coming. Such was the depth of the corner Caedus had backed them into. Frankly, the only thing Shedu Madd had going for it was that Caedus didn’t know about it….yet.

But now this new development..Luke didn’t even dare to consider how things were changing not yet. Not now. He couldn’t let his emotions or his desire for a light in the dark to cloud his judgment…or he might miss the very thing he was looking for.  And despite that flare of hope Luke knew from long experience…it was never that easy.

The voice of one of the flight controller’s on board the _Errant Venture,_ the repurposed Imperial Star Destroyer that served as the Jedi Coalition’s capital ship, who was monitoring the little traffic there was from surface to space crackled over the comm system. “We read you Master Skywalker. You’re cleared for takeoff. Be careful out there. You too Captain Solo.”

“We will be,” Luke promised. “May the Force be with you.”

“And you,” the voice answered and then the comm clicked off. Luke pulled the landing gear up and sent the Falcon rising into Shedu Maad’s starless sky with one smooth motion of the controls. As the freighter rose skyward he settled back in the pilot’s chair and glanced at Han who sat down awkwardly in the co-pilot’s seat. Han didn’t like relinquishing the pilot’s chair and he was still worried.

“Tr…” Luke began to offer.

“Trust you. I know. I do, kid. I do. I always have. Just… the next time I wish for the Force to be more specific… hit me,” Han mumbled sheepishly. Luke grinned at him. After all these years, Luke was still ‘kid’ to him. It didn’t matter that he was approaching sixty, though he didn’t look it, was a father and Grand Master of the Jedi Order. To Han, in some small way, he’d always be that farmboy from Tatooine. That had annoyed him once. It didn’t anymore. Hadn’t in many years. Now he drew some measure of comfort from it. Everyone else might see him as the infalliable Jedi Master…but he could always count on Han and his sister, and most recently his own son, to knock him down a peg or two if he ever got too big for his britches.  They grounded him when nothing else could.

He felt a little of the farmboy he had been prod him. “Don’t worry. I won’t have to… the Force can do that fine all by itself.”

Han smiled at him and leaned over to clap him on the shoulder. “Don’t remind me,” Han said as the _Falcon_ broke the atmosphere and Luke sent it out toward the Mists. Silently, Luke willed the dying person on Centax-2 to hear him, though he doubted they were in any condition to hear, to hang in there. _We’re coming._


	3. Chapter 3

_Centax-2 moon, in orbit of Coruscant_

 

Darth Caedus regained consciousness to find himself staring at the underside of one of his StealthX’s wings, his body bruised and battered, his head a mass of throbbing pain and his personal reservoir of Force power still at slowly recouping dregs amid the raging winds of the Force Storm that had still not subsided. He had no recollection of how he’d gotten there but he suspected that it had been the dying action of the reconstituted lightsided spirit that had attacked him and the darkside entity… true to its nature to the end it had wasted its last breath to pull him—the very person it had been attacking--from the collapsing cloning facility because he had been…because he’d been struck down by falling debris and defenseless.

One of the greater failings of the Jedi he had learned the hard way…their propensity to throw their lives away to save the defenseless even when they were the enemy. Had they not been so blinded by their duty to ‘protect’ the weak and had the courage to suffer the hate that sacrificing the weak to save those stronger would have placed on them to _really_ protect the galaxy, they might have seen the bigger picture and the galaxy would not be in the mess it was now. One that Caedus alone was burdened with accomplishing.

But he was not so arrogant that he was blind to his own failings. Caedus had made a mistake. He could see that now. He’d fallen to the same temptation all Sith did eventually. He had cut himself off—from his family, from his lover, from his daughter—from everything he loved to spare himself the pain of their eventual betrayals as they turned against him…one by one…because of their small minded inability to understand what he was doing. And then he had cut himself off from his own pain so that he could keep going, keeping doing what needed to be done and in the process perilously blinded himself.

Blinded himself to the point that he had all but forgotten, deep down, why he was doing this and thought only of _his_ plan, _his_ destiny, _his_ galaxy, _his_ power which led him to the error of thinking he could build an army of perfect Sith from trapped Jedi spirits… to give himself more power. All the while excusing his mistakes to himself by acting as though he was still doing it for the right reasons and succumbing to the fatal flaw of self-absorption.

And now…now he’d lost that potential army and unleashed…he didn’t know exactly what the darkside entity was but it was incredibly powerful—powerful enough it had terrified him by its very presence--and it was seriously angry. Caedus’s one consolation was that it was a darkside spirit. Like it had been bound to the stone that had held it and the lightside entity he felt sure that—as all darkside spirits he’d dealt with before—it was as surely bound to the confines of the sterile moon as it had been to the stone. Only Force Ghosts had any sort of ability to traverse between locations at will and even then it was a case by case basis.

Caedus silently cursed himself for the self-absorption that had led him to make such a mistake as he struggled into a sitting position and took stock of his condition, ignoring the gale force winds that whipped around him. Now he was weakened. His physical ailments were easily remedied, he’d been injured but not badly and the lightside spirit’s foolish self sacrificing aid had ensured he had suffered no worse. But his strength in the Force was another matter. It would take longer for that to be restored and he would had to expend some of what little he had regained to heal himself before he dared return to Coruscant. Otherwise, there would be questions about what had happened. Something he could not afford.

He took a long deep breath and reached into himself with the Force, careful to control how much power he used of his faint reserves to heal what little damage he had sustained.

Self-absorption. It was the one flaw that seemed to be universal among the Sith. One he had vowed never to make and fallen into the trap anyway. He’d studied the lives of the most ancient  and powerful Sith, the likes of Naga Sadow, Freedon Nad and Exar Kun-one of those aforementioned Sith Spirits--in an attempt to avoid making the same mistakes. They had all made the same mistake. Sooner or later, they all forgot that they existed to serve the galaxy and instead came to believe that it existed to serve _them_. And he had fallen into the same trap anyway.

Caedus had forgotten the reasons why he was doing all this. Why he had picked up a lightsaber in the first place, why he had given himself over to the Sith, why he had taken sole control of the Galactic Alliance.

To _serve_.

He had forgotten because he was weak.

After his little girl, Allana, had betrayed him by sneaking off the _Anakin Solo_ with his parents, his pain had become a distraction. He had been unable to think, to plan, to command, to read the future…to _lead_. So he had shut away his feelings for Allana, had convinced himself that he was not really doing this for her and the trillions of younglings like her, that he was doing this for destiny—for _his_ destiny.

It had all been a lie. Even after what Allana had done, Caedus still loved her. He was her father, and he would always love her, no matter how much she hurt him. He had been wrong to try to escape that. Caedus needed to hold on to that love _whatever_ it cost him, to cling to that love even as it tore his heart apart. Because that was how Sith stayed strong. They _needed_ pain to keep the Balance, to remind them they were still human. And they needed it so they would not forget the pain they were inflicting on others. To make the galaxy safer, _everyone_ had to suffer—even Sith Lords.

His foolishness had placed him into a precarious position that he had to deal with immediately or risk losing it all. To say nothing of what the Jedi would have done had they discovered his plot or found him weakened as he was now. Luke Skywalker wouldn’t have needed to come after him, the lowest untrained child could have struck him down.

If the Alliance discovered his secret project with the bound Jedi spirits they would never understand it, they’d be certain he intended to take over as a vicious dictator like Vader had been..like Palpatine—intent on unleashing a Sith army on them. They couldn’t see what he could see and how could they if he didn’t tell them? Even if he did they would never really believe it. They didn’t have the Force to enable them to see what lay ahead, what destruction and darkness would come if Caedus didn’t do the things he did. The Force was something so far outside their realm of understanding it was all but magic to them and even after the reestablishment of the Jedi they failed to truly trust it with the implicitness that the Sith and Jedi did. It was simply…too big.

All the more reason Caedus had to protect them, as much from the devastation he had seen coming as from themselves. But they were not at fault for their limited natures. And he was beyond punishing others for his mistakes. Starting today, Darth Caedus was going to rule not through anger or fear or even bribery, but as every true Sith Lord should, through patience and love and…pain.

But first he must bury this mistake.

Healed he rose to his feet, brushing the gray sterile dust of the dead moon from his armor and cloak. Then he reached out with the Force. He had no doubt that the lightside spirit had spent the last of its strength taking him to safety but he had to be sure. He felt a flicker of sadness over that. Had he not been so foolish he would have had at least one truly powerful and loyal Jedi turned Sith to assist him and she had been the strongest of them all. But it was too late to worry about that now and as he reached out searching he found no sense of her. He’d spent so long carrying the little rock around that she and the darkside entity had been bound within that he was deeply familiar with what her sense in the Force felt like. If she had been alive, he’d have felt her  but he did not and she had certainly not been in any condition to hide herself..she’d been dying even as Caedus had been knocked unconscious.

With a little sigh, he withdrew his search for her and sought instead for the darkside entity to be certain it presented no current threat. He had no time to deal with dispelling the thing right now. If he remained gone much longer someone would start wondering where he had gone which led to…questions. The darkside entity wasn’t hard to find…he was he now realized as familiar with its feel as he was with the lightside one. That advantage aside…it didn’t seem to be making any attempt to hide whatsoever anyway.

It lingered distantly, drifting like a dark cloud across the moon’s surface, fury and hatred roiling through it like lightning strikes. It was deeply injured and weak from the failed essence transfer and its battle against the lightside spirit it had been bound with and Caedus. It might be able to come back for a second strike at Caedus but it would get it nowhere…it seemed more injured now than it had been before it’s roaring rampage in the cloning facility. Apparently it had expended too much of its energy during the confrontation. Caedus withdrew completely from his search. Becoming aware again of the raging storm around him.

He was faintly surprised that the darkside entity had not dissipated entirely yet, into the Void as all unbound Sith spirits did without being directly bound to something, but the energy of the Force Storm caused by the ritual gone wrong was likely giving it just enough ‘hold’ to remain… for a little while. But the Force Storm would eventually run its course and then it would undoubtedly lose it’s hold and be gone. And if it wasn’t…when this war was over and he had the time…Caedus would come back to banish it himself. It was of little danger stuck on a dead moon with no one to influence to do its bidding.

In the mean time, he would restrict all access to the moon to ensure it wasn’t given the chance to do so. Caedus would say he had gone out to clear his mind with a short flight and discovered….terrorists, Jedi terrorists which he had dealt with, to explain why he had not sent the Alliance Guard…stowed away secretly intending to strike at the Galactic Alliance and that he wanted no traffic to or from the moon to prevent further such occurrences. That would explain both his absence and his rumpled appearance. And it would strengthen the Alliance’s allegiance to him…their Chief of State having saved them from a hidden and shocking threat. They already expected the Jedi to strike at Caedus given the chance…there was no reason he shouldn’t use this failure to make something positive of.

He smiled to himself faintly, brushing his dark hair from his face as the wind belligerently tried to resist his attempts. Yes, that would work nicely. Satisfied with his solution he tapped the release for his StealthX’s cockpit hatch. As it hissed open he spared a last sad glance back at the moon’s barren surface and the collapsed entrance to the cloning facility. He really was sorry this hadn’t worked out and he wasn’t exactly certain what had gone wrong other than the fact he had not been aware that there had been two spirits inside the rock and not one.

Caedus hopped up conventionally, using the wing of the starfighter to boost himself into the cockpit. No sense expending his little remaining power for something as trivial as a Force fueled hop. He settled in and closed the cockpit, fingers ticking over controls. He wondered briefly at the darkside spirit’s past…what had happened so long ago that had necessitated that it sacrifice itself to bind the lightsided spirit? He doubted he’d ever know but it was something to think on…later. He had Moffs of the Imperial Remnant at Nickel One to go chastise for their own mistakes and he must replenish his reserves with meditation.

 

***

 

He _writhed_ with absolute hatred. She’d done it _again_. Oh how he hated her with ever fiber of his being. But he would not let that stop him, nor that foolish excuse for a Sith Lord who had the audacity to believe he could wrest _him_ under his control.

He was weakened. Too weakened to strike the offensive against that thrice-cursed Jedi. What she had done to stop him seizing control of the body that Sith Lord had so kindly offered had left him deeply wounded. It was not within his power to do the things he usually did…yet. But he would remedy that.

Even disembodied she managed to thwart him at the last moment. Oh he’d done his fair share of thwarting her as well. That was their dance. It always had been.

But always she survived, she overcame… she kept going. There had never been another with as fierce a will to survive that matched his own except her. But then there had never been another that had been able to match him in power except her either. No other being had ever existed that left their mark on the galaxy everywhere they went as he did…except her.

When she had first drawn his full attention—drawn him as no other ever had--the first being in millennia to do so, he had found her …fascinating, terrifying and infuriating. She was the only being who had ever truly threatened his existence. There had been futures in her that had truly frightened him. Such immense power, if only she had the will to direct it. And when he had found out the truth of their…connection…it had been glorious. She still was not aware of it, not truly, even after all this time.

Of course, he had immediately set out to kill or turn her…or consume her entirely. And her precious Jedi Council had unknowingly helped him by their own blind fear. But each time he’d failed. She would not waver, would not give up. He had underestimated her—gravelly. She had defeated him even as he had been set to destroy everything in the very moment of her victory and he had been helpless to stop her. He would not make that mistake again.

He took great satisfaction in the knowledge that her desperate bid to stop his return to the corporeal plane had done far, far worse to her than to him. It pleased him greater still that she had no idea the extent of what she’d done to herself. But she would. It was not nearly what she deserved.

He knew she was on this moon somewhere, hiding from him…dying. He also had no doubt that she would survive. She always did. He needn’t find her now. She would come to him. She always did that too. And this time he would be ready.

He needed a vessel to be most effective but he was not….wholly impotent.  But he lacked the power to simply flee to the far flung reaches of space as he had once been able to….for the moment. There was no life on this planet that he could influence or derive power from. It was dead as Ziost. And he needed to recoup his power, quickly. Before she did. Because she _would_ come for him and she _would_ find him no matter where he hid. She always did. It was the nature of their dance.

So when the foolish Sith Lord who had freed them both reached out, searching for him he did not resist or hide as he could have. He let the man brush his presence in the Force and then linger as he undoubtedly decided what to do. There was great power in the Sith, tremendous potential for much more—perhaps even enough to match her…one day. But he lacked her honed edge, her stone hard resolve and the durasteel will to use it. She had slipped beyond his ability to control long ago. She could have bent the very fabric of the galaxy to her will had she not lacked the ambition. Her, he….respected…as much as he was capable of respecting anything. But this Sith…there was a delicious flavor of fear and uncertainty about the Sith’s Force Touch, such delightful weakness. A perfect storm of vulnerability hidden behind a brittle shield of self-righteous justification.

Oh yes. The Sith would do very nicely.

He might not be able to dominate the man’s mind…yet. But he soon would for he easily recognized Coruscant—a planet that had once burned at his command as every Jedi there died screaming—as the sterile moon spun its slow orbit around its parent.  That he could easily reach. There he would find what he needed in the very air its citizens’ breathed. And then…the Sith Lord would know the true meaning of fear.


	4. Chapter 4

_Coruscant, on approach to Centax-2_

 

The capital swelled bright and round, it’s surface engraved with bright and brighter interlocking circles that sketched out the maze of towers and skylanes on the surface as Han flew the _Falcon_ as though he had every right to be skimming along the outer lanes of Coruscant’s tangled net of orbital traffic and didn’t have a warrant out for his arrest on sight.  This far out there was little chance that traffic control would notice them specifically even with orbital long range sensors. Lost among the rest of the constantly busy spacelanes they became just another part of the vehicular congestion.

Just the same, beside him in the copilot’s seat Luke knew what went on around him with acute clarity but he was still as stone, eyes shut as he concentrated. The orbital long-range sensors wouldn’t notice them but if Caedus _looked_ he would without Luke hiding them.  He had them tightly wrapped in a blank void that fed back only what would have been there if they weren’t. It wasn’t strictly Force Stealth—he preferred that for hiding himself not himself, Han and a ship—this was more a very subtle manipulation of the Force that made anyone who looked…look the other way.

It was marginally harder to accomplish than usual, because the closer they had gotten to Coruscant the more intensely he felt the presence of the darkside entity. It was here…close…but he couldn’t tell where exactly nor could he determine what it was or what it was doing, only that it was nearby. Instinctively he knew it didn’t want to be found though there was the ominous impression of waiting, like a viper placidly coiled but ready to strike. It’s sense within the Force made him wary and sent a deep coldness through him that made him nauseous. He carefully did not attempt to figure it out, to probe deeper when what he wanted was to go unnoticed might draw the entity’s attention before he wanted to.

But of the lightside spirit he felt…nothing. He was not surprised. They had pulled themselves so far into the Force that they had disappeared even from his senses. But it did nothing to still his worry that the lack of their sense had gone from a deliberate act of stealth to death. 

While Han saw to their inconspicuous flight and Luke kept them hidden in the Force, Artoo was jacked into the main computer interface in the cockpit corridor monitoring com traffic for any hints of detection. They weren’t take any chances.

“You getting anything?” Han asked as he piloted the _Falcon_ from one lane to another that curved farther around Coruscant, nearer to its second moon while obeying every traffic law in existence so closely it would have astounded Leia.

Luke reigned in his quiet seeking and opened his eyes still perfectly maintaining the ‘look away’ stealth that hid them. He sighed and shook his head.

“No. But the other one—the dark one--is here somewhere,” Luke answered. Han glanced at him dubiously.

“I have a bad feeling about this. What if it’s a trap?”

“It’s not a trap,” Luke promised. “Whatever it is…it doesn’t want to be found…yet.”

“Oh. That makes me feel much better,” Han quipped. “What about Caedus?”

“He hasn’t found us and he won’t,” Luke assured him as Han veered away from Coruscant’s traffic lanes as casually as a summer breeze and meandered behind the nearest incoming cargo ship, aiming toward Centax-2. He skipped them from behind one incoming vessel to another, wandering like someone on a leisure jaunt without any real hurry to get where they were going. No one paid them any attention.

“It’s not like him not to have a patrol out,” Han said almost casually. “I don’t like this.”

“I don’t either,” Luke admitted in fact he more than didn’t like it. He knew Caedus was directly connected to all this somehow and yet…there was no sense of him (which was very likely because he had himself under constant cloak from Luke due to his manipulated certainty that Luke was coming for him or less likely because he simply wasn’t in the system) but it was still odd that there were no security patrols on sensors. Caedus had to know that all the Jedi would have felt the disturbance and he _hadn’t_ guarded against them coming to investigate? That didn’t sit well with Luke and quietly set his danger sense dinging.

When they finally ran out of ships to hide behind Han punched the sublight engines in a mad dash to close the gap between Coruscant and Centax-2 before the orbital sensors picked them up. He curved the _Falcon_ ’s course and sent it sliding around the side of the moon before reducing speed and forcing the _Falcon_ into orbit of the moon.

They both peered out the viewport at the gray bareness of the dead moon…which was consumed with violently swirling clouds.

“Is that a…storm? Since when do dead moons have weather?” Han asked rhetorically.

“It’s a Force Storm,” Luke corrected. “Probably the result of the spirits being…freed.” He hesitated to say ‘born’ that didn’t quite fit even if it made no sense to Luke yet and there was no ‘probably’ to it. The storm practically oozed with Force energy, dark and light but the light was twisted…wrong.  Not corrupted, it wasn’t the darkside _in_ the light…the light itself was…sick. To the point Luke felt sick himself, it was the same wrongness he’d felt when he’d felt the disturbance in the Force that had caused this storm. The storm would subside eventually but Centax-2 would remain a Force Nexus permanently now, any force-sensitive that came here would feel the echo of what had happened. What _had_ happened here? 

“Oh wonderful. Where to?” Han said his tone one of jaded acceptance of the anomaly as Luke continued to peer out the viewport intently. Han had seen far too many odd manifestations of the Force to be phased by a storm.

“Get us in the atmosphere and set us down when I say,” Luke said. He kept his eyes open but he opened himself to the Force. It had demanded he answer the person’s Call, it would tell him where to go.

“Alright,” Han agreed without question. “But hold onto something. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”  He sent the _Falcon_ down into a careful descent but even Han’s piloting skills, second only to Luke’s, were sorely tested as the harsh winds whipped back and forth, buffeting the _Falcon_ ’s hull so that it jounced and bucked.

Luke held onto his seat and kept looking out the viewport as they plunged through the storm. His eyes could see nothing but rock sand whirling  around and past them but it wasn’t his eyes he was trusting.

“Luke, if you could pick somewhere that’d be great,” Han insisted, harried, as he hauled on shoved on the yoke to keep the _Falcon_ ’s nose down.

 _There,_ the Force said in its way, even though there was nothing to see but more flying rock dust. Luke pointed out the viewport.

“There.”

Han snorted seeing the same thing Luke’s eyes did but he complied, trusting Luke’s judgment over his own. The _Falcon_ sank further into the Force Storm, buffeted harder the lower it went until it broke through and they could see the surface of the moon.

“There is nothing _there_ ,” Han insisted, his belligerent streak showing.

“Yes there is. I feel it,” Luke said and rose, heading toward the cockpit door hatch. He felt that this is where he should be but still he felt nothing of the person they’d come to save. Luke felt his stomach clench in trepidation. Were they too late? He wanted to waste no time.

“You Jedi and your ‘feelings’,” Han complained weakly, but he cycled the flight controls for landing, fighting the roaring wind outside to put down. Luke almost grinned at Han’s ingrained need to complain about ‘obscure Jedi nonsense’ as he exited the cockpit, leaving the _Falcon_ ’s handling in her capable owner’s hands.

“Any chatter?” Luke asked Artoo as he stepped defty past the little droid who was dutifully still scanning comm. traffic, his wheels locked in place to keep him from skidding around the cockpit corridor as much as possible.

Artoo whistled in the negative, then chirped a query at him.

“Yes, you’re coming with me. I need your scanners,” Luke promised. Perhaps the astromech would pick up with simple technology what he couldn’t with the Force. It wouldn’t be the first time. Artoo beeped with approval and unjacked from the computer access port.

Instinctively, Luke put his hand out and steadied himself against the bulk head and placed his other on Artoo’s round dome to keep him from being sent careening.

“Brace yourself!” Han yelled from the cockpit a moment later as the _Falcon_ put down hard, rocking the entire ship. When it steadied again, Luke kept moving down the corridor toward the curving main corridor and the landing ramp, Artoo whirring thanks as he followed at Luke’s heels, even as Han cursed loudly and unrealistically that the rock sand was going to sandblast the finish off the _Falcon_.

He worked his way down the corridor and paused only long enough to snag a single use medpac, a comlink and a pair of protective goggles from one of the side storage bins to keep the rock dust out of his eyes. He’d experienced enough sandstorms on Tatooine growing up to know he would need them. He’d gotten the medpac hooked to his utlity belt next to his lightsaber, and the comlink tucked into one of the pouches alongside, Artoo waiting patiently at his feet and was about to loop the goggle strap around his neck when Han came hurrying down the corridor after him…he was checking his blaster’s battery clip.

“So what? We brave the elements and hope we find this person in zero visibility?” Han asked.

“No. I do. You stay here and keep the _Falcon_ prepped for a fast take off,” Luke said. Han gawked at him.

“You have no idea what you’re going to find out there!” he protested.

“Which is why I need you here. I can handle myself but if anything happens…we’re going to have to get out of here fast,” Luke explained gently. Han always wanted to be in the middle of what was going on. He hated sitting on the sidelines. So did Luke.

Han harrumphed unhappily. “Alright. You have a point. You go rescue the Great Dying Hope…,” Luke winced at Han’s choice of pun, though he could feel the apprehension it belied coming off Han in waves. “…and I’ll play airtaxi driver.”

“And set up the bacta tank. Just in case,” Luke added and finished donning the goggles. Han hit the release for the landing ramp. Wind immediately howled up the ramp, pelting them both with flying rock sand. Luke pulled the goggles up over his eyes, pulled the hood of his over robe up as far as it would go to protect his head and tucked his robes more securely around him against the winds and rock dust.

“Luke?” Han called as the Jedi descended the ramp, Artoo rolling along beside him. Luke looked back. All trace of humor was gone from Han’s expression and the worry he hid behind comedy showed plainly, he didn’t have to say anything.

“I’ll find them,” Luke promised. Han nodded and Luke knew that Han hadn’t missed that Luke hadn’t promised to find them alive. It was a promise he didn’t know if he could keep. “Watch your back Han, the Force Storm should hide you but I can’t keep the _Falcon_ hidden and myself plus the person if I need to and we don’t dare risk Caedus or the darkside entity picking up on us out here.”

Han sighed. “Never easy is it?” He muttered. “Alright…be careful out there.”

 

***

Outside the _Falcon_ , Luke stood, a tight cloak of Force Stealth drawn in around him, ignoring the elements and the near suffocating dust, eyes closed in concentration, at the foot of the ramp and tried to get a ‘read’ on the area the Force had drawn him to. It was difficult with the storm raging around him, its own Force Energy playing havoc with Luke’s senses. Artoo had his sensor antennae whirling above his head trying to get his own reading.

“Anything?” Luke asked the little droid. Artoo gave a mournful drone in the negative.

“Yeah,” Luke agreed. “Me either.”  He looked out into the storm, seeing nothing but more rock dust flying in the air. They were going to have to find the person the hard way it seemed. Luke hadn’t expected this to be easy.

He and Artoo trekked out over the barren moon, Luke trusting the droid to keep them oriented back to the ship with coordinates regardless of the lack of visibility, as Luke reached out all around him with the Force, repressing the nauseous reflex the twisted energy gave him, searching for the person who’d sent out the Call. But no matter how far he reached he couldn’t sense them.

Undeterred but growing increasingly worried he was too late, Luke kept moving, searching. Artoo kept his sensor antennae swing back and forth above him with no more success than Luke was having.

Then the sick feeling suddenly increased and with it came the bone deep cold of the darkside…and death. Several deaths. Luke followed the feeling blindly, letting the Force lead him where his eyes couldn’t see through wind and rock dust until he came upon the warped and crushed hatch. Luke reached out with the Force and probed for what had happened using psychometry. The place all but screamed with what had happened here it had been so violent and recent but it was muddled and confused…much as the person who had sent the Force Call had been.

This was the epicenter of the Force Storm, where the lightside and darkside spirits had suddenly blasted into apparent existence out of nowhere. Caedus’s presence resonated throughout it, he’d been hopeful…triumphant and then he’d been furious, shocked and utterly terrified. Unspeakable pain vibrated through the echo deeply. The darkside entity, the lightside being, Caedus. They’d all experienced pain but the lightside spirit’s was the most profound. Others had died here, not the lightsided spirit, but someone. And it had been quick but violent. There was no sense of awareness. Whatever had killed them had happened before they even knew what _was_ happening. There’d been a fight, a wildly fueled one that resonated with confusion and fury.  A desperate desire to survive, to protect, driven by pure base instinct and fueled by a more reasoned but blind urgency to warn others punctuated the confusion.

Luke tried to reach deeper to get a better idea of what had happened. He knelt and reached out to physically touch the warped hatch. Vague, foggy images filled his mind that echoed the sense of the lightside spirit, snatches of what had happened tumbling over each other in a tangled blur. Luke was picking up the events, as much as he could of them, from the lightside being’s point of view and they were so jumbled he could make little sense of them.

Luke withdrew his probe into the specifics of what had happened. He wasn’t going to find the lightside being this way. It had simply been in too much pain and too confused for him to get more than the strong emotions that had been running rampant at the time…and those he’d already experienced once.

Artoo whistled in concern.

“No they aren’t down there. Not anymore,” Luke answered guessing what the droid was asking him. Artoo answered with a confused shrill that said ‘Then where are they?’

“I wish I knew,” Luke told him. “But record the coordinates. Others did die down there. Someone will need to be notified to collect the bodies.”

Artoo beeped a sad agreement from beneath a heavy mantle of rock dust that had turned him an ashen gray. Luke rose to his feet and shook the rock dust that had collected on his exposed hand, free. It was pointless to try shaking it off his clothes, it would only resettle immediately. Instead he wiped at his goggles to keep them clear and peered out into the storm again extending his senses as far as he could.

He could feel Han, impatiently waiting for them back on the ship but he got no other sense of life anywhere on the planet.

As if on cue Luke’s comlink beeped. He pulled it from the pouch at his waist to answer. “No we haven’t found them yet.”

“Well could you hurry up. I feel like a naked Jawa hanging over a sarlacc pit out here,” Han complained nervously but even at this distance long acquaintance let Luke feel Han’s masked concern for the being. Han talked a good game but his better nature got the better of him sometimes…even when he didn’t want it too.

“Trying. I’m not sensing the person at all but I found where it all started. There was a fight…a big one…several people died in the fall out and Caedus was right in the middle of it,” Luke relayed.

“Why am I not surprised?” Han responded bitterly. There was a metallic clang and Luke got the distinct impression Han had thrown something in inept anger over the monster his son had become.

“I don’t think Caedus was the one doing the killing…or not all of it. He was terrified,” Luke said. “It was all too muddled for me to figure out anything else.”

“You’re not helping, Luke,” Han said.

“Yeah. I know what you mean,” Luke agreed even though he had felt the threat the darkside entity linger somewhere nearby presented. If it scared even Caedus…it spoke of very bad things. Luke didn’t say aloud that it scared him too. “I’ll keep you posted,” he said and clicked off the comlink.

He searched for an echo of emotion from the lightside being, the trail of their pain to follow from this place but it wandered out and then disappeared just as they had into the Force. Refusing to give up he kept probing, willing to stand here and probe ever millimeter of the moon’s surface until he found what he was looking for if he had to and then he felt a flicker in the Force that disappeared again as quickly as it came. Life…weak…very weak…so close to dead that it would have been completely missed by anyone without Luke’s sensitivity.

Luke’s heart skipped a beat with anticipation. The Force was with him. They were here and alive.

But why had it flickered out again? Luke stretched his sense out in the general direction he thought it had come from. He’d felt it but he wasn’t sure where exactly it was. It had faded away too quickly.

It took a while but the flicker came again, weaker than the last. Luke moved toward it, following his instincts, letting the Force be his guide not his eyes. The flicker came and went, wavering in and out of his perception like a barely audible heart beat on a life sign monitor.  

He and Artoo wandered, roving back and forth, as Luke reoriented every time he sensed the, brief and increasingly further apart, flicker.

Abruptly Luke’s senses honed in on the flicker more strongly than ever, his line of sight automatically pulled along with it to a small outcropping of barren rock no higher than his waist. Beneath it an unnaturally rounded pile of rock dust had settled. _Here_ , the Force said. Luke moved into a run against the wind, sending the pile of dust-which had been sitting atop a protective shimmering blue Force Bubble that wavered and winked like a faulty deflector shield--scattering into the air with a flick of his fingers even as he sank to his knees beside them. Artoo raced to follow, speeding along on his treads as fast as he could go, whirring with concern the whole way.

The being was a human woman and Luke marveled at what she’d done. She had trapped herself in a feedback loop with the Force as the energy supply. She wasn’t using any active draw of the Force at all, it was all being fed on what was being cycled through the ‘circuit’ and all of it was being used to power the Force Stealth she was using to hide, the Force Bubble she was shielding herself with against attack and a hibernation trance. None of which were in place correctly because she was trying to do too much with a body and mind so broken the fact she was alive almost seemed like a cruel joke and all of which became increasingly unstable as the Force was used dreg by dreg to power them, but the fact that it worked at all was astounding.

She was very literally being held together body and soul by using the Force as glue and Luke had only sensed her because her defenses were failing, picking up her presence when they faltered.

Not appearing to be more than a few years older than his niece Jaina, she was nude—why was she naked?--covered in a film of dust, pale as Japor Ivory Wood from shock and effort, and curled into the fetal position with molten gold hair so long it covered her from crown to knee, head tucked in the protective curve of her arms. She lay on her right side, exposing a ghastly lightsaber wound that cut across her ribcage and angled inward into her lung, her left leg had been crushed from mid thigh down and what flesh he could see beneath the cascade of gold hair and rock dust was cut, scrapped and bruised. That was just the surface, looking at her through the Force was quite possibly the most horrid thing Luke had ever seen.

Her pain, confusion, fear and desperation radiated off her in ephemeral, brightly colored tendrils in a display he’d never seen before, causing an aura of shifting shades of red, orange, purple and dark gray that pierced even the tightening black shroud of death around her.

There were the wounds, the lightsaber gash having seared through bone and flesh to reach a lung, leaving it collapsed and impeding her breathing seriously. The the brutally crushed leg that left bone in shards and flesh pulverized. And, there but invisible to the naked eye, Luke saw the clear injuries of Force Lightning he’d once suffered at the hands of the Emperor. The massive skeletal calcification caused by exposure to the severely conductive energy, the body wide micro seizures caused by the abrupt drop in blood minerals. The condition would quickly become chronic without treatment and rest, leaving her pain-racked for the rest of her life. She was in severe shock and more Force Exhausted than Luke had ever seen a person.

But that wasn’t what made Luke want to throw up until his stomach refused to cooperate. It was everything else.

Her mind was a raging storm of pain and agony that mimicked the storm around them. The surface of it charred away and anything sane buried beneath. He recognized the effects of Flashburn instantly, Corran Horn had suffered it once, when he’d shut down the part of his mind that harbored the memory of his wife’s presumed death due to the overwhelming emotional trauma it had caused. He’d regained it in time with help. But that had been one memory…this was her _entire_ mind. Luke couldn’t imagine what could be so traumatic that it caused one to essentially destroy every memory they had.

The ‘channels’ inside her through which the Force flowed naturally, from which she drew on it were burned and raw. Every time she had touched it had to have been like having lava pouring through your veins and she’d still done it. Even now the dregs that remained in the ‘circuit’ she had set up burned anew at the spots that the hibernation trance tried ineffectually to heal causing a vicious cycle, the very thing meant to heal her only reinjured it locking the process in a constant, excruciating holding pattern. Now he understood why she’d cobbled together the unconventional ‘circuit’ of Force power.

But worst of all…her spirit, the very essence of her, felt as though it had had a chunk of it ripped off brutally, leaving a gaping, hemorrhaging hole while some vile, debased, sick darkness bleed into it like venom from a snake bite that never stopped poisoning her and which the faint healing she had attempted had not affected in the least.

Luke had never seen or heard of anything like it. He was deeply glad he never had, it made his skin crawl and set every hair on his body on end. He hoped very fervently that no one else in history had ever suffered this or ever would again. This was the ‘wrongness’ he’d been feeling.

And yet… at the very center of her being (which despite what his eyes told him conveyed a sense of immense age that he couldn’t understand) beneath all the agony, injury and swiftly impending death…seeming utterly immune to the poison in her spirit or the injury to her dying body was this small but immeasurably deep, strong, silent, calm, unbelievably brilliant core that refused to be moved by what had happened to the rest of itself. Just seeing it through the Force brought Luke a deep sense of quiet resolve and hope…of peace. He felt as though if he dared to reach out with his own essence and touch it… it would eradicate old scars and unhealing wounds on his spirit he’d long sense forgotten or never known were there. He wanted to.

He’d never do that without permission and he dared not right now even if he did, he feared it would set off some cascade of devastation that would destroy what little life remained in her. He had to act quickly but first he had to figure out how to get through the Force Bubble she’d erected around herself without actually touching it. He feared if he waited for it to collapse on its own it would only do so at the same instant everything else collapsed including her life. In fact, he was fairly certain that’s exactly what would happen.

But if he attempted to reach her physically or pierce it through the Force with it still up it would quite literally hit back, rebounding on him like a shield bouncing back a blaster bolt. He was sure he could have torn it down with little more than a thought as weak as it was but he didn’t want to accidently cause her further harm by doing so.

Artoo hooted worriedly beside him as Luke thought quickly about what to do. If he could get her attention, make her aware he was there… the hibernation trance was very weak and the strength of her Force Call proved she had strong telepathic abilities…. Luke settled back on his heels, let himself drop into a light trance and extended a cautious tendril of his mind toward her gravely injured one. Feather light he brushed it and pulled back quickly. A mental tap on the shoulder.

It worked. Forcefully. The hibernation trance broke and her eyes—eyes the verdant green of Assari tree leaves-sprung open filled with wild fear and feverish though she was too weak to lift her head. She peered at him with an animal’s wariness—friend or foe? And Luke felt that if she had any doubt she would lash out defensively regardless of what it cost her.

“It’s okay,” Luke said gently. “I’m Luke Skywalker. I’m here to save you.”

Her fine brows pinched together at the sound of his voice but there was a light in her eyes that made it clear to Luke that she could understand him. Her gaze swept over him, lingering first on his lightsaber and then very intently on his eyes.

“Can you understand me?” Luke asked even as he unclipped the medipac he’d brought with him from his belt and flipped it open. The Force could do a lot but it never hurt to have a little help.  Maybe he was wrong, maybe her mind was so damage she’d lost even the ability to understand speech. But then tremendous relief bloomed in her gaze.

“Jedi.” She breathed hoarsely in the barest whisper. The Force Bubble abruptly came down-fell apart really and the Force Stealth with it. Her eyes shut again, too exhausted to keep them open. He didn’t have to use the Force to know she’d passed out cold. The tenuous ‘circuit’ of Force energy collapsed without her to consciously sustain it. Her heartbeat started to fade.

Artoo wailed in alarm, his miniature sensor satellite spinning crazily as his sensors picked up what Luke already saw.

Casting his cloak of stealth out to encompass her to keep them both hidden—from Caedus and the darkside entity--Luke acted quickly, scrambling to insert an ampule of cordrazine laced adrenaline into the medpac’s infuser. Without the Force to sustain her life she’d be dead in moments. He injected her with it, experiencing a sort of double vision as he used both his eyes and the Force to gauge what to do and when. He didn’t even know where to begin putting her back together, there were so many things wrong.

The potent combination of adrenaline and cordrazine rushed through her, ‘jump-starting’ her vitals so that her heart started to beat faster, more steadily, and began to push back the affects of shock. Her one healthy lung expanded and deflated more efficiently, helping take some of the burden from the collapsed one. It wouldn’t last long but it would keep her going until he could get them back to the ship. Luke wasn’t in the least surprised Han had medpacs this powerful on board the _Falcon_ , with all the problems they ran into they needed it a lot more often than Luke cared to admit. The number of times someone had come close to dying were too many to count lately…and too often it became truth.

Her vitals at least relatively stable, Luke tossed out the empty ampule and changed it for another of Nyex—a strong painkiller which made many people, Luke included, very drowsy— and followed the cordrazine/adrenaline with it. The effects were immediate and even in unconsciousness she relaxed a little further as the physical pain ebbed.

Drowsiness wasn’t exactly a factor at the moment and Luke wanted her out of as much pain as he could before he moved her. He could do nothing about the rest of her pain—the worst of it—in her mind and spirit, not now. He could have easily put her into a proper hibernation trance that would help immensely but he didn’t want risk it until he got her back to the _Falcon_ and was certain that using the Force to heal her wouldn’t further damage the already burned and raw ‘channels’ within her.

He shivered with revulsion at the implications, her ability to use the Force twisted so that any attempt to was agony and a injury. Would even outside use of the Force on her cause the same thing? His stomach threatened to flip over on him again. Luke repressed it and pulled his comlink out.

“Han. I found her but she’s in bad shape. We’re on our way back.”

“I hear you Luke. She? Okay then. Ready and waiting,” Han replied over the comlink, his voice tinny and vaguely digital over the connection. Luke clicked the comlink off again and tucked it away before shrugging off his over robe. He shook as much of the rock dust off as he could and draped it over her then very carefully scooped her into his arms, wrapping the robe around her like a blanket to cover her exposed form.

She was completely limp against him, her head lolling to rest against his shoulder. Luke exerted a bit of the Force, made her lighter. “Okay Artoo, led us back to the _Falcon_.”

Artoo beeped with enthusiastic urgency and hurriedly spun himself around, wheeling out into the Force Storm confidently. Luke, the strange woman held safely in his arms, followed--a sense of quickly approaching danger tickling between his shoulders.


	5. Chapter 5

When they arrived back at the _Falcon_ it was to find Han staring down at them from the top of the landing ramp as he lowered it with an expression of barely restrained curiosity and relief, his mouth contoured to deliver some trademark off the cuff bit of witty sarcasm. But he took one look at the trio, covered in gray rock dust looking like living statues of themselves and whatever he had intended to say died on his tongue.

Luke wasted no time hastening up the ramp keeping the cloak of Force Stealth tightly around he and the woman, Artoo following at his heels muttering a constant series of low worried whistles, driven not just by the necessity of fast action to preserve the woman he carried’s life but because the tickle of approaching danger he’d felt had become a quiet klaxon of warning. They were going to have company very shortly. Luke noted it, kept tabs on it, but prioritized. Before they could do anything they had to get this woman into a bacta tank, then they’d face whatever was coming.

Han’s expression soured considerably at the pathetic sight of the woman in Luke’s arms. “You weren’t kidding,” he said as he hit the ramp controls to pull it back in and hurried to follow Luke who was already half way down the main corridor heading for the tiny space that served as a medbay on board the old Corellian Freighter. “Tank’s set up.” He provided.

“Thank you Han,” Luke called back over his shoulder. But Han still followed—his intent to assist if needed radiating off him like a welcome breeze--as Luke swept through the lounge area and into a very short corridor that dead-ended in an escape pod hatch with the ship’s top hatch directly above them. Han Solo was nothing if not resourceful. The corridor had been meant only to allow access to the hatch and escape pod and for storing vaccum suits in the overhead compartments but Han had economized the space and crammed a single bunk into the interior bulkhead that had a small bacta pump system embedded next to it  with various attachments to suit any number of situations from amputated limbs (which Luke was very familiar with) to blaster wounds. 

At least half the size of a standard tank, Han had set up the collapsible field tank--wedging it into the end of the corridor butted against the escape pod hatch and secured to the floor magnetically so that it wouldn’t be jostled. Two small storage tanks of bacta were already hooked to the filtration system, ready to fill the tank at need; the heating unit that controlled the bacta’s exacting temperature requirements plugged into a utility socket and the rebreather required to provide the patient with oxygen lay draped over the top of one of the bacta storage tanks. The field tank itself was—morbidly— was a transparisteel coffin size rectangle that lay on the ground instead of standing upright like standard tanks, making it easier to transfer the patient inside it to another location—and a larger standard tank—more easily and quickly. Field tanks weren’t meant for long term immersion, only as life saving stop gaps until you could reach better facilities…or they could come you.

Luke carefully lay the woman bundled in his outer robe onto the bunk as Artoo scrambled into an out of the way corner to sit whirring anxiously and Han crowded in to get a closer look. Luke brushed back the hood of his cloak from her face, it had kept most of the rock dust out of her mouth, nose and eyes but there was still a thick film of it clinging to her skin making her look more like she was a stone figure than a living person.

“Han, hand me…” he said as he looked up to ask Han to hand him a packet of sterile cloths so he could remove the grime before it got into her air way only to find Han staring at the woman and a sense of disbelief rolling off him like smoke. “Han?”

“It can’t be.” Han muttered his brows twitching.

Luke glanced from the woman to Han and back again. “Do you know her?”

“No…yes…sort of,” Han stumbled. Luke’s brows went up and he gave him a pointed look to continue.

“It’s not possible,” Han insisted off his look and quickly added, “Even for a Jedi,” before Luke could remind him for the millionth time that anything was possible through the Force.

Luke pointed at a packet of sterile cloths which Han fumbled to retrieve and handed him absently still staring at the woman’s face in disbelief. “A Jedi?” Luke asked, a thousand questions running through his mind, as he began using one of them to wipe away the grime gently. She never stirred.

Was this young woman a Jedi? If so, where had she come from? There were no living Jedi that were not part of the Order and she was far too young to have been a survivor of Order 66. The more Luke learned the odder and more mysterious this whole thing grew.

“Yeah a Jedi but….it’s too hokey,” Han insisted “even for you.”

“Spit it out Han,” Luke prodded the reluctant former smuggler. “There’s trouble on the way.”

Han’s brows crept further toward his hairline in alarm and he opened his mouth as if to decry talking when trouble was inbound and then thought better of it when he saw the-will-not-be-argued-with-expression on Luke’s face.

“When I was a kid, I dunno maybe nine or ten, we were sent on this school field trip to the Museum Republica in Coronet City—the Empire hadn’t ransacked it yet—it was supposed to be a history museum but it was more like a display of galactic curiosities of questionable authenticity so of course I didn’t think anything of it then. Throw in the rest and it’s laughable,” Han said.

“What ‘rest of it’?” Luke pressed, tossing the used cloth into a waste receptacle and glancing at his brother-in-law. He was surprised that there had been any Republic artifacts or monuments left, even then, but that had been early in the Empire’s battle to conquer the galaxy and it was just like the Corellians to display everything they could find of Republic importance-real or imagined-in a show of open defiance.

“There was this statue of a Jedi, robes, lightsaber and all that was supposed to have been some big hero to Corellia back in ancient times. Plaque said something like…‘Liberator of Corellia, Supreme Commander of the Jedi Forces’ but it was pretty mutilated by age and vandalism. Someone had chipped off half the inscription.”

“And you dismissed it because Jedi were just a hokey religion with ancient weapons?” Luke countered almost teasingly as he tucked his robe more securely around the unconscious woman against any chill. Han glared at him briefly for that jab.

“That and because in addition to robes she was wearing 1st Class Corellian Blood stripes. You ever heard of a Jedi wearing blood stripes? There’s no way.”

Admittedly, Luke hadn’t. The very tenants of the Order, past or present, discouraged such displays of pride. Jedi didn’t need medal or awards for what they did, they did it because it was what was right and needed. That didn’t stop the Republic from bestowing them of course. Luke and Han had both been awarded the Medal of Bravery for their parts in the destruction of the first _Death Star_. “A Green Jedi?” he proposed casting a curious glance back at the unconscious woman. “They still existed before the Clone Wars.”

Han shook his head vehemently. “No. Just a Jedi. And only Corellians are awarded blood stripes. Had to be a crock. Somebody probably painted the things on there trying to inspire patriotic pride or something. Plus, there was nothing saying what she supposedly liberated Corellia from, just the statue. Besides,” he went on sounding almost personally offended at the idea of a non-Corellian being awarded blood stripes—probably since he himself had been awarded both classes and saw it as an affront to what they meant--and waved at the woman. “She may look like that statue but she’s young enough to be my daughter. There’s no way. Jedi don’t come back like that, that’s a Sith thing.”

That wasn’t strictly true and Luke knew it. Callista, a Jedi who had sacrificed her physical life during the Clone Wars to embed her spirit in the computer system of the _Eye of Palpatine_ in a last ditch effort to stop the planet destroying monstrosity from completing its final mission of obliterating Belsavis and—by the time Luke found it—a long gone or dead group of Jedi Children saved from Order 66 by Ho’Din Jedi Master Plett. Her effort had only been temporarily successful however since the ship’s AI refused to give up its mission, only be subverted—during which Luke and his student Cray Mingla and her lover Nichos Marr, also one of his students, were captured by the crazed ship.

They’re subsequent efforts to escape and finally stop the ship once and for all succeeded---during which Luke fell in love with the disembodied Jedi--but Nichos died and Cray--grief stricken and mortally wounded as well--had given Callista her blessing to possess her body since she had no desire to continue living without Nichos and could not be saved in any case.

Callista had accepted the gift Cray had given her and for a time Luke and Callista had enjoyed happiness together, though the fact that upon regaining a body Callista found herself unable to touch the lightside of the force, only the darkside, had eventually driven Callista to leave him in search of a way to touch it again with the promise that one day she would return. She never had and Luke had let go of her, eventually falling in love with Mara though he still held an abiding affection for Callista and hoped profoundly that she had found what she was looking for and with it, happiness.

 _Could it be?_ Luke wondered glancing at the woman’s face again. As a Jedi, Luke didn’t believe in coincidence. But Han was right. This couldn’t be the same person as that statue had depicted, whoever they had been. Callista had managed to dodge death, yes, but the body in which she had done it had not been her own and though Luke had met some exceedingly old Jedi that had survived Order 66 all had looked as old as they were. There was no way this could be the same person in the same body.

And yet…Luke had gotten a sense of immense age from her spirit even as his eyes said otherwise and he had a horrible notion of how it could be done. After all, it had been he and Mara who had discovered Thrawn’s trick of growing clones in Ysalamiri bubbles and he who had discovered the method by which Palpatine had managed to survive the destruction of the second Death Star. Was this woman the clone of some long dead great Jedi? Being a Ysalmiri bubbled clone would explain how Luke had not sensed her existence until now…but not the sheer command of the Force he’d felt from her through the Force. The woman lying on the bunk wasn’t full of simple raw untrained power, she was at the very least a Master of Luke’s caliber. Something that took decades of training and immense Force potential.

Again Luke could think of a way that too could be done, though how you would go about finding what you required mystified him since there wasn’t exactly a trove of disembodied Jedi spirits laying around that hadn’t become one with the Force to stuff into bodies that he was aware of…the idea and the chances that someone—Luke felt a chill pass down his spine (Someone like Caedus? Was that how he was connected to all this?)—could have found both a spirit and the physical material of their bodies to clone a body to put the spirit in through a horrible darkside ritual was….astronomically mind blowing.  And it made no sense that Caedus would—even if he could manage all that and Luke put nothing past him—resurrect a Jedi. Especially an ancient one that would have immediately recognized him as Sith and set out to destroy him. Caedus was trying to destroy the Jedi that already existed. The idea also did nothing to explain where the darkside entity had come from and why Luke hadn’t sensed it prior to now…still…

He looked again at the woman’s youthful face and frowned in consideration. “Who _are_ you?” he whispered and found that he wanted to know not just because if there were any answers about what was going on she was the one who had them but because he genuinely wanted to know who she was. He wanted to know the person whose spirit burned as an immoveable, implacable radiance of hope even in a storm of darkness and pain.

“Wait,” Han said incredulous. “You don’t actually think….”

Luke shook his head as he began to lift the woman’s body again to place her in the field tank. “I don’t know Han but…there’s something about her. It doesn’t make sense I know but…”

“It never makes sense with you Jedi,” Han said in exasperation, moving to man the bacta storage tanks. “But you’ll figure it out. You always do.”

Luke spared him a glance of sympathy for being the poor non-Force Sensitive always tossed into the middle of things beyond even most Jedi’s comprehension, though Han never failed to comprehend it just fine…it just drove him nuts that it had to be ‘Jedi craziness’ when there was enough craziness of the mundane variety to last a lifetime.

Han’s face grew grave again. He jerked his chin toward the woman as Luke lowered her carefully into the empty tank. “How bad is she?”

“Bad enough. Lightsaber to the lung, crushed leg, severe shock, and massive damage from Force Lightning,” Luke began.

 “That’s not all that bad though right? I mean, all the Jedi have survived things just as bad,” Han tried to say enthusiastically as though he were trying to convince himself more than Luke. Probably because he was trying to soothe his own deep apprehension of what would happen to Jaina when she went after her brother and saw the possibility of her fate reflected in this woman’s condition. Luke didn’t steal that tiny shred of hope from him by mentioning all it had taken to kill his wife was a poison dart at the right time. Han knew it all too well.

“Yes,” he said instead as he gently lifted the woman’s head and secured the rebreather to her face. He flicked a switch and the soft sound of the rebreather passing oxygen from tank to mask filled the confines of the narrow corridor. “But it’s not her physical injuries that worry me the most. It’s what has been done to her spirit; it’s sick, shredded, poisoned. Her mind is a charred waste land. Using the Force..incinerates her from the inside out.” He shook his head again dismally. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

All the blood drained out of Han’s face and Luke knew he was looking at the woman and thinking of his little girl in the same condition at Caedus’ hands. “Caedus did this to her?”

“The lightsaber wound, for certain. Maybe the Force Lightning, but the rest? No. I don’t think he did,” Luke said truthfully, reaching to set the temperature controls for the bacta to warm before pumping it into the tank to submerge her but finding Han had already done it, all Luke had to do was start the pump. “Even Caedus doesn’t have that kind of power.”

“The darkside entity?” Han asked amusedly and understandably less disturbed by a galaxy destroying entity having done it than his son.

“Partially maybe but I got the sense that either what ever happened here did it or she did it to herself. I _know_ she did part of it to herself, though whether it was intentional or not remains to be seen,” Luke said thoroughly bemused by the whole thing. He shut the tank without rising and hit the controls for the bacta storage tanks, causing a soft sucking sound to override the sound of the rebreather as the tank began to fill with the bluish bacta solution that would regenerate and heal her physical injuries. She never once stirred.

Han looked as horrified as Luke felt. “Why would she do something like that?” he asked and then immediately changed his mind as the weight of the possible answer sunk in. “No don’t answer that. I don’t want to know what could make someone do something like that to themselves.”

“I fear we will have no choice,” Luke said which only served to make Han look more horrified than before.

Han looked faintly ill at the prospect. “You _are_ going to be able to save her aren’t you?” Han asked worriedly.

“Her body, sure. But her mind, her spirit? I don’t even know where to begin,” Luke admitted, clicking off the pumps once the tank was full and setting it to cycle the bacta through a filter and back again. “But the Force is strong with her, incredibly strong. It wouldn’t have led me here when the only thing that could be saved was a body without a mind.”

“Then let’s get outta here. Between you and Cilghal you two could cure a rainy day. I mean she saved Mon Mothma when no one else could and you…well you’re you.”

Luke refrained from reminding Han that Cilghal had healed Mon Mothma of a created nanoborne disease, something entirely physical though seemingly impossible to cure. This was an entirely different situation. It was true Jedi healing could heal the soul and the mind, but Luke had never seen something on this scale and Cilghal certainly hadn’t. Luke didn’t delude himself by denying his concern that they might not be able to. That did not dissuade him for the fact that he was going to try.

 _Do or do not. There is no try._ Luke could almost hear Master Yoda admonish him. No. Luke wouldn’t try. He would do it. With Cilghal’s help he’d find a way. Or make one. He only hoped they managed it before the darkside entity made a move…or Caedus made his next one.

“We’ll find a way,” Luke promised firmly “Somehow.” Han gave him a sly grin for it  that Luke didn’t quite understand despite the pleased sense he got from Han, as he finished his task by setting the life sensors to monitor the woman’s vitals, a soft beeping began to accompany the wish-whoosh of the cycling bacta and the hiss of the rebreather. Why was Han so pleased about Luke’s decisiveness suddenly? “But you’re right. We need to get out of here. That trouble is about to be on top of us and I won’t be able to hide us the way I did coming in. Not and hide her from Caedus and the darkside entity. The last thing we need is for either to realize we have her.”

Now that the woman was safely immersed in the bacta tank he could allow himself more attention to the threat his danger sense kept warning him of and as he stretched it out to get a better idea of what it was he realized that there was security patrol now orbiting the moon in an impossible to avoid grid. Caedus’s handy work no doubt. It was unsurprising that he apparently didn’t want anyone anywhere near here and had taken measures to make sure of it. They must have missed the patrol coming in either because of a shift change or because they had only just been launched. Leaving the moon unguarded at precisely the moment that he and Han had slipped by. Luke suspected the former.

“So much for keeping this mission a secret,” Han sighed. “Agreed.”  He didn’t have to mention the implications of them being found out. The only thing they had on their side now was that while Caedus would find out they had been there…he wouldn’t know they had the woman. Which would hopefully leave him thinking they had come to investigate but found nothing.

“The Force Storm has hidden the _Falcon_ so far but when we break the atmosphere…”

“…We’ll be sitting nerfs,” Han finished for him. “So we do this the hard way.”

“The ‘hard way’ being?”

“Just like old times, we shoot our way out and run like Hell.”

To Han’s surprise Luke didn’t disagree with him only nodded. “Give me a few minutes. I need to see if I can get her safely into a hibernation trance. It will speed along the bacta healing and go a long way toward laying the ground work for everything else.”

Han simply nodded in understand. “Come on Artoo. You can help me,” he said to the little droid who whistled appreciatively. He gave a whistle in Luke and the woman’s direction as if to say ‘good luck’ and then whirred after Han. Artoo could make calculations far faster than the _Falcon_ ’s own navicomputer and his skill in handling the processes of the weapons system was second to none.

When they were gone, Luke settled on the floor next to the tank in a meditative pose. He ignored everything else. There was only him, the woman and the Force. He had become so attuned to the Force that dropping into a trance came as easily as breathing now. Once there he reached out for the woman through the Force, finding her much as she had been when they began their trek back to the _Falcon_ , save for the very first touches of healing the bacta had offered as it began its work. But it would do nothing for her spirit, her mind, or the seared ‘channels’ through which she drew the Force. A hibernation trance would but she could not place herself in one. Nor would the bacta set the shards of bone that had been her leg.  It would heal it but it wouldn’t be of any use to her again. In lieu of a medical droid to do the job it fell to Luke.

Thus he was going to test a possibility. She couldn’t wield the Force without causing further damage but was it possible he could use the Force on her without the same effect? If so he could safely place her in a hibernation trance himself, which she desperately needed and set her leg which would be a painstaking task in itself. He had no intention of setting it completely right now, it would take far too long and in their current position they dared not take that kind of time but when they were safely in hyperspace he would. Right now he simply needed to know if it were even a possibility to begin with.

As he reached out for her he met no resistance. She was so deeply unconscious she couldn’t resist. Delicately he pursued every avenue of physical injury, carefully cataloging in his mind what was what and what went where so he did not accidently make something worse by trying to make something else better. If at any time it appeared that his use of the Force on the woman was going to cause _any_ damage he’d immediately stop. Patiently, tediously he focused on her leg, probing until he found two tiny shards that ‘matched’ like a children’s puzzle.

He realigned them slowly and used the Force to accelerate the shards healing. They knit almost instantly so small were they…and nothing happened but what was supposed to. Luke tried it again, connecting another shard to the first two. Still things only progressed as expected. Delighted, he withdrew from that part of the trance. It seemed he could use the Force on her, even if she could not use it herself.

 Better yet, as he worked he noticed the small relentlessly strong core of her spirit, flare just a tiny bit brighter. Almost imperceptibly but it was there. As though somewhere behind all the wreckage of her mind…whoever she had been was still there just...asleep…or beaten into unconsciousness.

Luke was so pleased with the tiny flicker he had to resist the urge to reach out for it. Not yet, it was too soon. That would damage her, he had no idea the exact nature of her spiritual and mental injury…if he reached out and by some miracle she reached back…the way they had during the Force Call…he didn’t know what kind of torture he might inadvertently subject her to. No, let her remain as she was until they got back to Shedu Maad, where there were more Jedi Healers and a full complement of medical equipment in case the worst should happen.

Now he must do the hardest part. The hibernation trance. It required him to touch his mind to hers, however briefly. He felt sure that placing her into it would not cause her further harm now but he feared that the act of touching a mind so injured would cause her excruciating pain. So he sought her mind very carefully, the primal part of it not the higher reasoning centers that were lost to him, buried behind the horrendously extensive flashburn.

But despite his delicacy the instant his mind touched hers, there was a violent flare of white hot pain from her. Luke winced even in trance and intended to withdraw immediately but despite the pain the woman’s mind did not recoil, did not seek to hide from the pain. Instead, it wildly roiled as the primal, unreasoning part, tried fiercely to fight through it.

Alarmed and heartened by the pure tenacity of it Luke projected calm and safety at her. _Trust me,_ he willed gently. _You’re safe. Let me help you._ To his surprise, her primal mind stopped fighting instantly and settled, waiting, withstanding the pain the contact with his caused. He had expected at least a moment or two of resistance simply because of her agony. As gently as he could he eased his mind to touch hers. Her primal mind didn’t attempt to stop him, didn’t fight or cause him extra effort as it tried to figure out what he was doing. With a light touch he completed the initiation of the hibernation trance and her mind, primal and higher, slipped without resistance into the serenity of the Jedi healing trance like it were an old, well loved blanket.

Luke slowly receded from the trance and her, careful not to disturb her in anyway lest he cause her pain or injury again though the hibernation trance should serve to prevent it. Before he rose to his feet to go help Han face the security patrol circling the moon he took a brief moment to gather the Force to him and let it revitalize him.

He was beginning to grow weary, he had been wielding the Force nonstop since they had entered the Coruscant system and even he needed rest once in a while. But the Force obeyed him and he felt a rush of new energy flood through him to replace what he had lost. It allowed him the strength he needed to keep the Force Stealth around the floating woman, her eyes now shut not in agony but in rest as long tendrils of her hair drifted around her, escaping the confines of his outer robe to sway like seaweed. And again he wondered to himself as he turned to head to the gun well where he would be needed, _“Who are you?”_ Now he wanted to know more than ever.

 

***

Luke gave the bulkhead a hard rap as he hastened to the gun well ladder to let Han know he was ready to go. Even as he scurried up the ladder to the dorsal gun well Luke felt the vibration as Han activated the repulsor lifts and began take off.

Quickly settling into the gunner’s chair Luke pushed any thought of the woman below in the bacta field tank from his mind other than what was necessary for him to maintain the Force Stealth around her and himself. He had done all he could for her, for now and pondering her origins would only distract him during their escape from Centax-2. 

He slid on the intership communication headset.

“I’m in. You read me?” he asked, testing if Han could hear him over in the cockpit as he powered up the guns.

“Loud and clear,” Han replied, his voice tinny over the upgraded and highly modified ship’s systems as he sent the ship angling up into the Storm again. The hull began to rattle against the buffeting winds. The _Falcon_ might be old but she’d put up a better fight than just about anything that could fly. “Here’s how we’re going to play this. I can’t pick up a damn thing on sensors in this Force Storm so we’re flying blind. But if we can’t detect them, they can’t detect us. Not until we get clear of the storm. So…the second we’re clear I’m going to punch the sublight engines. Put as much distance between us and this moon—and that security squadron--as possible. Try to buy us some time to calculate the jump to hyperspace. You just keep that squad off our tail until we can make the jump.”

“Sounds good to me,” Luke answered, sitting back in the gunner’s chair and focusing himself. “Ready when you are.” The system display that usually showed the quad targeting system during combat flashed with aurebesh.

_You shoot high. I shoot low._

Luke smiled faintly at Artoo’s confidence. Technically an astromech was not meant to pull double duty firing a ship’s guns but Artoo  had always been something more than just an astromech, proving astonishingly proficient in areas he had never been programmed for and more clever than a driod had any right to be so regularly no one questioned it any longer.

“Droid’s got delusions of grandeur,” Han complained. Luke heard Artoo squawk indignantly at him and Luke knew the astromech’s domed head was swiveled to glare at Han from his position jacked into the Falcon’s systems in the cockpit. “But beggars can’t be choosers,” Han amended reluctantly. Artoo made a rude nose in return.  Luke chuckled softly at them.

“Alright, get ready. Here we go,” Han said before Artoo could say anything else. With that, the rattling disc of the Falcon broke through Centax-2’s atmosphere, clearing the storm into the starry blackness of space and instantly in the line of fire of six ETA-5 Interceptors on a standard patrol pattern before the Falcon’s sensors could even register them. A full patrol squadron consisted of twelve fighters. The other six were doubtlessly circling the other side of the moon in a sweep, intending to rejoin these six and then repeat the pattern. But, Force willing, the Falcon would be long gone before they could rush to their squadmates’ aid.

A descendant of the older ETA-2 Interceptor, the small one-man fighters were also considered a type of A-Wing due to the fact that the fighters’ hull resembled that of a standard A-Wing though it still sported wings that echoed its predecessor…and twin ion engines. Armed with laser cannons and concussion missiles the little ships were dangerously fast, hard to hit and deadly. But they sacrificed stronger shielding and armor for speed and fire power, making them one-shot kills when you could hit them.

The Interceptors saw the Falcon at the same time that the Falcon saw them. They immediately streaked toward them, the ship’s comms crackling as they issued a standard demand for surrender even as Han resolutely ignored it and shoved the sublight engines to full before the Interceptors could swarm them. Luke felt himself pressed back into his chair as the Falcon shot into space, trying to gain a lead on the Interceptor’s. The lead wouldn’t last long but it would buy them a few seconds.

He waited, fingers on the triggers for one to get within the Falcon’s firing arc, extending his senses into the Force rather than relying on the targeting computers. He didn’t want to destroy them, though that would have been the closest they could have gotten to a guarantee of retained secrecy. He just wanted to disable them long enough for the Falcon to make the jump to lightspeed but he wasn’t naïve enough to think they could get out of this with no casualties. Caedus ruled the Galactic Alliance with an iron and vicious hand hidden by vine-silk gloves. The pilots of those fighters wouldn’t back off if they had any choice because failure meant severe punishment. That they were in Han’s ship and Han was wanted as a terrorist to the Alliance (and Luke was just wanted dead period) didn’t help.

The nearest Interceptor fired a blast of warning shots that missed the Falcon entirely, trying to frighten them into submission as its five companions broke formation, zipping off in different directions to swarm the Falcon. A last demand for surrender crackled over the comms and Luke heard Han switch off the comms entirely in defiance.

“How’s that for an answer?” Han snarked.

Then the Interceptor’s were on them, swarming like Endorian Swamp Bees. Three assaulted from behind, battering at the Falcon’s shields mercilessly in an attempt to punch through them, safely out of Luke’s firing range. The other three harried from the front trying to force Han to steer toward Coruscant instead of away in a bid to run the Falcon to ground. Getting in front of the ship was a bad idea.

Luke tracked them with the Force, ignoring the blasts they rained down on the hull as the Falcon twisted and turned through space while Han was buying time for the navicomputer to complete its calculations for hyperspace. The gunner’s chair swiveled and bobbed beneath him unnoticed as his body moved in synch with his mind wait…wait…wait… _now!_ As the three Interceptors intent on harrying them from the front closed and started to swing back Luke fired.

A barrage of laser fire ripped through the farthest Interceptor’s starboard wing, sending it spinning to port, where it slammed into its buddy. The second Interceptor scrambled to get out of the way to no avail as it too was flung across space hurtled faster than the first by the force of the blow from its squadmate…right directly into the third front assailant, taking half the third one’s port wing off in the process. The second one, too damaged by the second impact with another ship blew like an incandescent fireball while the other two were left helpless and unable to follow.

That only left the three herding them from behind…or trying to. Furious at the simultaneous loss off half their number the remaining three Interceptors came in hard, pummeling the Falcon from behind and both sides. Through the headset Luke heard something crack and spark wildly at the same time as the ship bucked hard under fire. Han cursed.

“Port deflector’s down!” Han warned. The Falcon twisted hard to starboard pulling the undefended side away from the three Interceptors…and giving Luke exactly what he was looking for. A clear shot.

As the ship rolled, flipping over in a sideways corkscrew Luke targeted and fired on the Interceptor that had previously been on the Falcon’s starboard side. The shot hit the hull head on and the fighter went spinning uncontrollably.

Artoo shrilled triumphantly as he picked off the fighter that had been to their port side the same way.

“Nice shot Artoo!” Luke congratulated as the Falcon spun upright again. The last Interceptor had shot ahead to avoid being hit by the Falcon and was coming around the comm. line chattering crazily as the pilot called for backup…which by Luke’s senses and the ship sensors were coming at full speed from around the other side of the moon.

“Incoming,” Luke called into the headset pickup just as Artoo locked target and blew the last Interceptor to bits, he gave an annoyed blurp as if to say ‘Take That!’.

“Too late,” Han said smugly and Luke felt the distinctive backward pull of the hyperdrive seizing the ship. “Better luck next time!” Han bit as the Falcon catapulted into hyperspace, leaving the too slow Interceptors eating hyperdust.


	6. Chapter 6

_Nickel One, Roche Asteroid Belt in the Roche System-Verpine Home World_

 

Caedus—all thought of his failed experiment pushed from his mind for the moment, in favor of more immediate concerns and all action taken that might be to cover it up which would be making a _startling_ appearance on the Holonet Nightly News--finally crested the winding pedramp he had been ascending and found himself looking down a long tubular tunnel coated in the gray-yellow foamcrete the Verpine reserved for their royal warrens.

Here he would consolidate the last of his needed power for the Galactic Alliance…by taking control of what the Imperial Remnant—who had attacked Nickel One without direct permission on their own initiative under the color of authority as an ally of the Alliance. An attack that had ended with most of the Imperial’s slaughtered at the hands of the Verpine and their paid Mandalorian bodyguards, though in the end the Imperials had succeeded in taking control at the last moment, at heavy cost. With that control, he would have both the Imperial Remnant and the substantial munitions the Verpine could provide--usurping an arms source that had been neutrally supplying all sides in the war without bias--for his own and cutting the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances and the Jedi Coalition off at the same time. Then he would crush both—either cowing them into surrender and obedience or–in the case of the Jedi, blind extremists that they were, and whom he did not expect to surrender at all—annihilate them.  

He really did hate that the lot of them were so stubborn it was taking an all out war to gain their obedience—blind children all of them, completely unwilling to accept the truth. Without Caedus—the entire galaxy was going to be plunged into darkness. It would be dominated by a Dark Man on the Throne of Balance and his little girl, Allana, all grown up, would be at his side as he destroyed the galaxy. He’d seen it in the Pool of Knowledge. Caedus had to save the galaxy, for his daughter and all the other children like her, for everyone. By any means necessary.

At the far end of the tunnel—guarding one of the shiny new beskar -alloy blast hatches that had done absolutely nothing to stop the Imperial Remnant’s aerosol attack—stood a squad of white-armored stormtroopers. Their gray-striped shoulder plates identified them as members of the Imperial Elite Guard, and the two tripod-mounted E-Webs set along the walls suggested they were serious about preventing unauthorized access to the chamber beyond.

The stormtroopers were still turning in his direction, no doubt trying to decide whether the single black-clad figure striding toward them was anything to be alarmed about, when Caedus raised a gloved hand and made a grasping motion. The squad leader raised his own hand as though returning the greeting—then was knocked off his feet as both E-Web supply cables tore free of the power generators and came flying down the corridor with weapon and tripod bouncing along behind them.

The remainder of the squad swiftly moved to firing positions, dropping to a knee in the middle of the corridor or pressing themselves against the tunnel wall, and brought their blaster rifles to their shoulders. Caedus sent a surge of Force energy sizzling down the corridor, reducing the electronic opticals inside their helmets to a blizzard of static. They opened fire anyway, but most of the bolts went wide, and those that did not Caedus deflected with the occasional flick of a hand. He was still ten paces away when the squad leader pulled his helmet off and, bringing his weapon to bear, began yelling for the others to do the same. Caedus raised his arm, catching the leader’s bolts on his palm and deflecting them harmlessly down the tunnel.

As the second and third man prepared to open fire, he flicked a finger toward the leader’s blaster and sent it spinning into them. It slammed the second man into the wall and knocked the third’s weapon from his hands. Caedus summoned the leader forward with two fingers, using the Force to bring the astonished soldier flying into his grasp.

“I have no intention of harming anyone beyond that door,” Caedus said, making his voice deep and commanding. “But I have no time to waste, so I won’t hesitate to kill you or your men. I trust that won’t be necessary?”

The sergeant’s eyes bulged as though his throat were actually being squeezed shut—which it was not—and his face paled to the color of his armor. “N-n-no, sir. N-not at all.” The sergeant motioned for his men to lower their weapons. “S-s-sorry.”

“No apologies necessary, Sergeant,” Caedus said. “Obviously, you haven’t been informed of the new chain of command.” Caedus set the sergeant’s boots back on the tunnel floor, then turned to look at each of the others in the squad. He made it appear that he was requiring each man to look into his yellow eyes, but actually he was Force-probing their emotions, looking for any hint of anger or resentment that suggested there might be a hero in the group. He was down to the last two when he sensed a fist of resolve tightening inside one. “Don’t do it, trooper,” he said. “There aren’t enough good soldiers in the Alliance as it is.”

The fist of resolve immediately began to loosen, but the trooper wasn’t too surprised to say, “With all due respect, Colonel, we’re not Alliance soldiers.”

“Not yet.” Caedus gave him a warm smile and turned toward the blast hatch, presenting his back to the entire squad. “My escorts will be along shortly. Don’t start a firefight with them.”

When he felt the squad leader motion the hero and everyone else to lower their weapons, Caedus nodded his approval without turning around. Then he circled his hand in front of the blast door, using the Force to send a surge of energy through its internal circuitry until a series of sharp clicks announced that the locking mechanisms had retracted. A moment later, a loud hiss sounded from inside the heavy hatch, and it slid aside into the wall. Caedus stepped through without hesitation and found himself looking down on a sunken conference pit where a couple dozen Imperial Moffs—most of the survivors of the slaughter aboard the _Bloodfin_ —were rising to their feet, some reaching for their sidearms and others looking for a place to take cover.

Across from them, a small swarm of insectoid administrators from other Verpine hives squatted on their haunches, their shiny heads cocked in confusion and their mandibles spread wide in an instinctive threat display.

“No, please.” Caedus extended his arms toward the Moffs and motioned for them to return to their seats—using the Force to compel obedience. “Don’t get up on my account.”

The Moffs dropped almost as one. Most landed in the chairs they had been occupying, but a couple missed and landed on the floor. Several of the aides standing behind the Moffs’ chairs were pointing hold-out blasters in his direction, looking to their superiors for some hint as to whether they should open fire or stand down. Caedus swept his arm up and sent them all flying out of the conference pit onto the surrounding service floor. “I’m afraid this will be a confidential conversation,” he said. “Leave us.”

When the aides did not instantly obey, he gestured at one of those who had been pointing a blaster at him and sent the man tumbling out the hatch. “Now.”

The remainder of the aides scrambled for the door, many without bothering to stand. Caedus watched them go, his attention divided between them and the Moffs, ready to pin motionless anyone who even thought about raising a weapon.

Once the aides were gone, a simple glance was all it took to send the Verpine administrators scuttling after them, leaving him and the Moffs alone with a single huge Verpine with age-silvered eyebulbs and a translucent patch on her thorax where the carahide was growing thin. She showed no inclination to rise from her position at the far end of the conference table, where she lay stretched along a heavily cushioned throne pedestal. “Jacen Solo, where will the hives ever gather the wealth to settle our account?” The Verpine spoke in an ancient, thrumming voice that seemed to resonate from the very bottom of her long abdomen. As the High Coordinator of the Roche system’s capital asteroid, she was effectively the hive mother and chief executive officer of her entire civilization, outranking even the Verpine’s public face, Speaker Sass Sikili. “First, you rescue us from the Ancient Ones, and now you come with your fleet to send away the whiteshells. Welcome.”

“Thank you, Your Maternellence. But the name now is Caedus. Darth Caedus.”

The hive mother inclined her head. “We have heard you went through a metamorphosis. It is hard to believe you were just a larva when you saved us before.” She unfolded an age-curved arm and gestured at the Moffs. “The hives will be happily rid of these wasps. Proceed.”

“I wish it were that simple,” Caedus said. He turned his attention to the Moffs, who were studying him with expressions ranging from impatience to annoyance, depending on whether they were brave, astute, or just plain foolhardy. “But you’re misinterpreting our presence. My fleet and I aren’t here to free the Roche system—we’re here to hold it.” It was difficult to tell who was more outraged, the mandible-clacking hive mother or the grumbling Moffs. Caedus raised his hand and—when that failed to produce quiet—used the Force to muffle the clamor. As soon as he could be sure of making himself heard again, he said, “This will be best for everyone. The conquest of the Roche system has given it a significance far beyond the value of its munitions factories.”

The hive mother raised her thorax off her couch and demanded, “What significance? The hives are neutral! We have nothing to do with your war.”

“You have been selling munitions to all sides—and profiting handsomely,” interrupted a combat-trim Moff with close-cropped gray hair. “That makes you a legitimate target.”

“Moff Lecersen makes a good point,” Caedus said. “And I did warn you that the Mandalorians lacked the strength to protect you.” Before the hive mother could argue, he turned to Lecersen. “But the Moff Council should have consulted with me before acting. There have been indications in the Force all along that this invasion would be a mistake.”

“Because you want the Roche munitions factories for yourself?” scoffed a youthful Moff. Caedus recognized him from intelligence holos as Voryam Bhao. With his honey-colored complexion, curly black hair, and a sneering upper lip just begging to be ripped off his face, he looked even younger than the twenty-three standard years listed in his file. “Spare us your dark prophecies, Colonel Solo,” Bhao continued boldly. “Everyone at this table sees what you’re trying to do.” The bile began to rise in Caedus’s throat, but he reminded himself of his resolution and resisted the urge to snap the young Moff’s neck—as he had Lieutenant Tebut’s not so long ago.

Instead, he said in a calm, durasteel voice, “You really should listen more carefully, Moff Bhao.” He made a dipping motion with his index finger, and Bhao’s head sank toward the table as though he were bowing. “It’s Caedus now. Darth Caedus.”

If Bhao’s older peers were amused, they did not show it—not even in the Force. They simply glared at Caedus, and another of the Moffs—this one a round-faced man with a roll of red neck-flab hanging over the collar of his buttoned tunic—shook his head in open disapproval. “We are all aware that you are very powerful in the Force, Darth Caedus,” he said. “But you seem to be forgetting that we are quite powerful in our own right. If not for us, that catastrophe at Fondor would have been the end of you and the Galactic Alliance.”

“Nor do we need to consult with you about anything,” Moff Lecersen added. “The last I checked, the Empire was an ally of the Galactic Alliance, not its territory. We don’t need your permission to conduct our operations…and we surely don’t need your fleets to hold what we take.”

 Caedus brought his anger under control by reminding himself that he deserved such a rebuke. He had not failed at Fondor because of Niathal’s treachery, or his admirals’ lack of boldness, or even because of Daala’s surprise attack. He had failed because of his own blindness, because he had allowed his anguish over Allana’s betrayal by running away and his parent’s subsequent kidnapping of her to make him arrogant and selfish and vindictive.

And then, once his thinking had cleared, he began to see how the situation must look to someone who did not have the Force. To someone who could not look into the future and see Luke hunting him down, or see Mandalorian maniacs bursting from walls and asteroids burning as bright as stars, Caedus’s assertion might be hard to believe. Without such foresight, it might be easy to convince oneself that this lonely cluster of rocks could not be as important as all that—that the balance of an interstellar war could never hinge on what was about to happen here. After a moment’s silence, Caedus said, “You don’t believe me.” His tone was more disappointed than angry.“You think this is about spoils.”

Lecersen exchanged suspicious glances with several of the other Moffs, then asked, “You don’t really expect us to believe you came out here to protect us, do you?”

Caedus had to stifle a laugh. While he hadn’t been thinking of it in those terms, he realized that was exactly what he was doing here—protecting the Moffs and their crucial fleets. “I suppose that does sound absurd.” Realizing that only events themselves would convince the Moffs of his sincerity, Caedus turned and started toward the exit. “The truth so often does.”

 

***

 

No sooner had Caedus returned to his flagship, the Imperial II-Class Star Destroyer _Anakin Solo_ , named in memory of Caedus’s first real sacrifice though he hadn’t known it at the time—his little brother, named for their grandfather, who had given his life saving the Jedi from the Yuuzhan Vong’s Jedi-Killing voxyn during the Yuuzhan Vong war( a pointless waste in hindsight)—but otherwise known as _Black Annie_ to it’s crew due to the vessel’s dark coloration, than things began to impinge on Caedus’s perfect plans.

He hadn’t even gotten off the shuttle back from Nickel One before his personal assistant, a short unremarkable sandy haired human woman that was never the less surprisingly skilled at data analysis and dutiful without question came hurrying across the flight deck with an expression of  nervous anxiety.

“My Lord!” she called before she’d gotten within conversation distance. Caedus stopped, wary. He knew without having to ask that something had happened. He could feel it throught he Force…but why hadn’t he felt it before now? “I beg your pardon my Lord for disturbing you…”

“Out with it Ezzab,” Caedus demanded.

“Yes My Lord,” she babbled. “There has been an incident.”

Caedus arched a brow, folding his hands behind his back, waiting. Ezzab swallowed hard in fear that was strong enough he could almost smell it.

“I realize that you apprehended and killed several Jedi terrorists on Centax-2, and the press release is still scheduled to be presented via the Holonet tonight as planned to advise the public of this treachery and all access to the moon has been restricted as ordered,” she said as if trying to quantify what she really had to say. “However, it would seem that you missed some.”

Caedus felt a cold fury flood his veins.

“It would seem my Lord that your Father was involved, the _Millennium Falcon_ was seen fleeing the moon only a few hours ago. Unfortunately they made the jump to hyperspace before they could be apprehended.”

Caedus clenched his fists in rage so tightly that the leather of his black gloves creaked loudly and he was sorely tempted to Force Snap the dilutive woman’s neck out of nothing more than pure rage and her being a convenient target. But no, he had sworn he would not rule so recklessly. He would have his men’s loyalty through love and pain not casual slaughter. Ezzab had only done her duty. This was his error. Ceadus brought his anger under control viciously.

He should have known. Of course, the Jedi would have felt the disturbance in the Force when the essence transfer went wrong. Of course, they would have risked it all to come investigate looking for any excuse to remove him from his position as Chief of State of the Galactic Alliance, for any weakness they might exploit. Doubtless Skywalker had sent his Father and may very well have been on the ship himself, in any case there would have been a Jedi with Solo.

It mattered not. They would have found the same thing he did. Less in fact. Nothing but a collapsed hatchway and a Force Storm they had no idea where came from. The darkside entity had fled to lick its wounds and the re-ensouled clone was dead. Let them wonder what new threat he had brought bare against them. It would only serve his purpose further if they were afraid of what he was going to do to him next. Let Luke Skywalker fret about what Caedus had done this time. Perhaps it would dissuade the Grand Master from coming after him in vengeance for Mara Jade-Skywalker’s death until he was certain of what had happened and by then…it would be too late.

That said this…intrusion…was going to cause him a great inconvenience. He couldn’t afford to look lax to his men or the Alliance.

“Your orders my Lord?” Ezzab asked quietly.

“My orders remain the same,” Caedus said calmly, pleasantly. “That the terrorist Han Solo managed to evade capture again is not surprising and only further proves how far the Jedi have fallen.”

Ezzab blinked, looked at him aghast. “You don’t...you don’t wish to amend the press release for tonight My Lord?” She didn’t make the error of suggesting that not amending it would be a mistake on his part.

“No. In fact I want no mention of this incident made at all to the public,” Caedus said. “We wish the public to know the threat the Jedi represent to us…not to panic them. That said, immediately prepare for return to Coruscant. I will attend to this myself.”

Ezzab’s expression lightened with relief. Just as Caedus wanted. “Yes my Lord. Right away.” She said hastily and hurried off to do his bidding. Caedus remained silently seething as he attempted to keep a reign on his fury. To no avail. He let loose with a low growl, yellow eyes blazing and Force blasted the nearest object which turned out to be the shuttle he had come back in. The shuttle screamed across the flight deck until it crashed into the bulkhead, crushing the right wing and tearing a meters long gash in the durasteel deck. “Skywalker,” he hissed.

 

 

***

 

He had descended into the shadows of Coruscant’s undercity. The deep, dark, ignored depths of the Republic’s crown jewel where its unwanted--the destitute, the vagrants, the criminals and the exploiters--eked out a living as best they could or took advantage of the weak amid the grim caked and broken remnants of the past. Many of its precarious levels made from the debris from the Sacking of Coruscant—from his own devastation of the world.

Here, unnoticed by the pathetic, reviled and pitiable inhabitants, he hid and grew stronger. Here death was as common as breathing as the sick, the starving and the victims succumbed to disease and violence or to the jaws of the twisted creatures that shared the undercity. In the deepest levels corpses long dead turned to dust, forgotten and ignored. Here things died without intervention or restraint. Here he fed.

Every death, regardless of how small or insignificant, nourished him. It was not the bounty he had once been able to consume nor did it give the power droves of violence driven deaths would have or the deaths of those who caused those deaths. It was like a starving man surviving on a single bread crumb at a time but it was something and soon, as the undercity’s inhabitants went on killing and dying, ignorantly unaware of the shadow that had descended on them. But it was enough.

Above darkness roiled and threatened, beckoning him. The galaxy was at war. Wasn’t it always? There he would truly regain himself. There he would show that Sith Lord what the darkside truly was and what it could do.

The war and its deaths would be his. The galaxy would be his. It was time he claimed it once more. And this time…she would not stop him.  And then? There’d be nothing.

He fed and he laughed…and if the sad dwellers of the undercity felt his ill intent…it went unheeded in the depths of depravity and despair.


	7. Chapter 7

_Secret Jedi Base, Shedu Maad, Transitory Mists in the Hapes Cluster_

 

Five and half standard days after it had left the _Millennium Falcon_ returned to Shedu Maad without further incident. Luke had commed ahead of their descent for Cilghal to have a medical retinue on standby to take the intriguing woman the Force and her desperate Force Call had led him to rescue.

He had tediously and meticulously reset the shattered bones of her left leg and thanks to the bacta she remained submerged in , still deeply in the hibernation trance he had placed her in, most of her physical wounds were little more than vague traces on the outside. Though a quick look at her body through the Force showed that a day or so more in a proper bacta tank were still in order.

The rest of her however….remain unchanged. He suspected it would until Cilghal and the other healers could safely determine how to repair what was wrong in the first place and Luke had not wished to risk further injury by meddling himself until they understood more. Yet, despite her deep unconsciousness and the injuries to mind and spirit, Luke found himself constantly aware of that quiet durasteel core that slept in the background and the odd multi-colored ephemeral aura that surrounded her which had calmed to a soft blue-green in the hibernation trance.

While her healing was at least progressing, Luke was no closer to figuring out who the woman was. Nothing in the Falcon’s limited databanks gave any suggestion but then he hadn’t really expected them to. It wasn’t as if Han bogged down his computer banks with scads of Galactic History. It had however passed the hours when he was not tending to the woman’s injuries and served to give him something to contemplate instead of futily reconsidering the chilling possibilities he’d first considered, and which still nagged him as the most likely, without any confirmation.

As the Falcon came to ground on the cleared spit of land that served as the hidden base’s landing pad, it was to meet a crowd. An orderly quiet crowd but a crowd nonetheless.

As Luke maneuvered the field tank with the Force down the landing ramp, Artoo wheeling ahead  as a determined vanguard set on ensuring they passed without issue and Han at his heels, it was to meet the entire Order in assembly, all waiting with controlled curiosity and anticipation so intense it hung like a thick cloud. They were arrayed in neat columns, the Council taking up the first ranks on either side, the Knights the next, their Apprentices after them then the younglings and at the very back everyone else, just as they would have assembled in the Great Hall of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. And set apart, waiting in  the middle with her cadre of healers trailing a small repulsor sled, large dark eyes simply daring anyone to spring forward to get a better look was Cilghal, calm as a placid pool.

A ripple of quiet whispers chased through the gathering as Luke cleared the landing ramp with the field tank and they got a look at it. Luke would have preferred that there not be a spectacle but he knew that they were as curious about the lightside entity they had all sensed so profoundly as he was. More so since they knew even less about her. And she did look strangely ethereal, floating in largely false serenity, inside the bacta tank, her long gold hair fanning around her in slow waves as though she were some long lost legend out of a children’s tale being borne home in a crystal coffin. Or perhaps that was only Luke’s imagination toying with him after what Han had said about the ancient statue on Corellia.

Luke lifted the tank onto the repulsor sled neatly and lowered it with only the smallest clink as it settled into place. Cilghal was already eying the woman with a critical gaze even as he did so.

First the Mon Calamarian’s complexion blanched from deep salmon pink to almost white at what she saw—seeing what Luke had--then flushed until she was almost red in a flash of anger--only to blanch again with sorrow. Mon Calamrian emotional responses were notoriously hard to read by eyesight alone but there was no mistaking Cilghal’s horror at what she saw. She swiveled her dark eyes to look at him. Her voice was very soft as she spoke. 

“Her body has healed remarkably well under your care,” she said. “The hibernation trance…?” The rest went unspoken. Her body but not her mind, not her spirit.

“My doing,” Luke supplied.

Cilghal nodded briefly, sadly, in understanding. “Then let us not waste time. I will fetch you as soon as she may be awakened. We,” she gestured with a flippered hand to the other healers, “will begin work immediately.”

Since Luke had been the one to initiate the trance, only he could bring her out of it. Had she not been so utterly devastated the woman held enough power in the Force she could easily have roused herself at will.

Cilghal clapped, or what passed for a clap when you had fins for hands, and the other healers hastened about, connecting the tank to life sensors and other medical devices to it even as the repulsor sled was deftly guided back toward the abandoned mining facility turned Jedi base with expert precision. Cilghal followed, her pace and bearing quietly determined as she calmly and softly started issuing orders before they’d even gotten inside.

Luke watched them go, worried but steadfastly certain they would succeed. His attention was only pulled away as Leia broke from the ranks, sweeping gracefully to her husband’s side, an arm slipping around Han’s waist without thought in the comfortable, loving natural affection of those who loved each other completely. Luke felt a pang. He knew that feeling…one that was lost to him forever now that Mara was gone.

“How bad is she injured?” Leia asked, concerned. Processing an accepting instantly that the lightside entity they’d all felt had gone from an ‘it’ to a ‘she’. “Did you have much trouble?”

“It’s bad sweetheart,” Han answered before Luke could. “But don’t worry Luke and Cilghal will fix her. You just wait,” he added off Leia’s deepening expression of concern. “A security squad took a few potshots at us but nothing we couldn’t handle.”

“Yes,” Luke said quietly but with a fierceness that surprised him as he cast a glance back toward where Cilghal and her healers had gone with the woman. Even at this distance he could still sense that incandescent calm, durasteel buried core of her. It served to fortify his own determination. “We will.”

Leia’s brows went up. “Luke? What is it?”

Luke blinked at his twin. “Nothing. Why?”

His sister shook her head, her hair now streaked with wisps of gray swayed around her shoulders shorn off by her own hand to disguise who she was when she and Han had slipped away with Allana--known only to Luke, Han and Leia by her real name but to everyone else as Amelia and deemed a war orphan, Jacen and Hapan Queen Mother Tenel Ka’s daughter--to save her, from her father and conniving Hapan nobles. Leia smiled faintly. “You just seem…different.”

Luke was about to ask what she meant by that but Leia’s break from the ranks seemed to be the cue for everyone else to. Most meandered off, casting glances of curiosity back toward the mining facility and talking among themselves about the woman, speculating in hushed voices. But the Council and Jaina Solo, Luke’s niece and Leia and Han’s only daughter, converged.

Jaina, not surprisingly was the first one to pipe up, never one to hold back. “That’s the being…the person who sent out that Call?” she asked, eyes wide with curiosity but her mouth was set in a half frown as if she had more than that on her mind though it was apparent someone had explained what was going on to her in his absence.

“Yes,” Luke said. “When did you get back?” Jaina had been out investigating the Imperial Remnant attack on the Roche System—and any connection it had to Caedus--even before the massive disturbance in the Force.

“Four days ago and the news isn’t good,” she said her curiosity overwritten in her eyes and the Force with a sad, almost defeated resolve.

“I was afraid of that,” Luke admitted. He knew if Caedus gained control of the Imperial Remnant he would have solidified enough fire power to stand against any faction that opposed him, even if they all united against him.

“Yez,” hissed Saba Sebatyne the reptilian Barabel Jedi Master, a member of the council, Leia’s former Master and Mara’s best friend. Her forked tongue flicked in and out once. “Much haz happened in your abzence Master Skywalker. The council muzt confer.”

Behind her, carefully avoiding stepping on her club like long tail, Master Kenth Hamner, a Corellian Jedi and part of the Jedi Council, with hair that had been gray for as long as Luke has known him spoke almost absently, though his gaze was cast in the direction Cilghal and the woman had gone a faint line between his brows. “Yes. It is time.”

His words held the ring of forgone conclusion, for Luke knew very well to what he was referring since the Council had already debated the issue about to laid before them extensively in Jaina’s absence. But that had been before the disturbance in the Force, before Luke had felt the absolute certainty that everything had changed. Yes. It was time. But not for what the other’s expected.

“You seem distracted,” Jagged Fell—the exiled human heir to a Chiss noble house who had thrown in his lot with the Jedi Coalition though not without hesitancy--noted of Master Hamner.

Hamner shook his head. “It’s just that woman…she seemed familiar.”

Han jumped on his words like a lizard-monkey. “See!” He declared to Luke. “I told you.” He glanced at Hamner, whom Han usually found the dullest Jedi ever to exist. “That statue at the Museum Republica in Coronet City. You remember it too!”

Hamner looked considering a moment, and then his face blossomed with recognition. “Yes. I remember that one. The odd one of a non-Corellian Jedi with Blood Stripes. You’re right. That woman looks just like it. But that’s not possible.”

“I don’t remember ever seeing anything like that or a Museum Republica,” Corran Horn, also a Corellian, a Jedi Master and now leader of the slowly reemerging Corellian or Green Jedi but still firmly of the Jedi order itself, said shaking his mane of brown hair.

Han made a dismissive sound and waved him off. “You’re too young. The Empire razed it to the ground before you could even walk.” Corran arched a good-natured eye brow at him.

“Wait,” Kyp Durron incredulously interjected. “You aren’t seriously suggesting this old statue was of that woman? She’s not any older than Jaina!” He looked at Luke with an expression that demanded he talk sense into Han and Hamner.

“True but there may be more to this and what Han and Master Hamner are saying than what is apparent. There is a sense of great age about her and there is precedent,” Luke said calmly, demolishing Kyp’s hope of sanity.

“Callista,” Leia said quietly as though she were afraid saying his old love’s name in the wake of his dearest love’s death would pour salt in a wound that would never close. It very nearly did and would have had Luke not already come to the same conclusion himself.

“That was entirely different,” Kyp insisted. “And she didn’t look like herself, it wouldn’t even have been possible if Cray Mingla hadn’t….”

“All truth is revealed with time,” Luke said as much stay Kyp’s words as to calm the quickly escalating debate.

“Time which we don’t have,” Kyp insisted anyway. “This is ridiculous.”

Luke looked at him sternly, which caused Kyp to cast his gaze away abashedly but it was Saba who spoke.

 “We were all already aware, even before thiz, that thiz fight, thiz war will be won or lozt in the mystic realm not in the phyzical.”

The admission caused Jaina to blink in surprise at them. She alone of those gathered was not aware that the Council had already made its choice and had only been waiting on Jaina to realize it herself. A choice which was now called into question by the unforeseen arrival of the woman and the darkside entity.

It was Corran who stated the weight behind it that Luke had already accepted. “This woman, the darkside entity that came with her…they’re being here changes everything doesn’t it? I feel it.”

“We all have,” Leia said.

“Then why don’t I feel worse about it?” Corran wondered aloud, though he didn’t sound particularly bothered that he didn’t feel worse. Luke understood the feeling implicitly, all of them had long been living with the dread of what was to come and suddenly there was this odd sense of hope despite the unknown of the darkside entity or Caedus.

“The Force willz it,” Saba said very simply.

“Will of the Force of not, we can’t sit idle while it makes up its mind to make its intent clear,” Master Hamner interjected.

“Master Hamner is right,” Jaina agreed. “Not with what I found out.”

“And we won’t,” Luke assured them. “Gather in the Council Chamber and we will discuss what is to be done.”

That seemed to satisfy everyone’s need for action. The members of the Council bowed their heads in acknowledgment and departed, Jaina following on their heels determinedly and Jagged Fell falling into step beside her. It was no secret that he was in love with Jaina, or her with him…if she could only ever make up her mind between Jagged and her fellow Jedi, Zekk. Theirs was a complicated dynamic to say the least.

Leia lagged only long enough to give Luke’s arm a sisterly squeeze before she followed, pulling Han with her. As the press around him cleared and Luke was left alone on the landing pad, his son Ben appeared. Luke hadn’t even seen him. He must have been politely waiting out of sight while Luke dealt with the woman’s care and the Council. But now that he had his Father alone his wide eyed curiosity had gotten the better of him.

“Dad,” he said approaching calmly despite the cloud of curiosity that hovered around him. “So…that’s her. The being.” It wasn’t a question, simply an observation.

“Yes. That’s her.”

“She’s…broken,” Ben noted. Luke scowled slightly. While it did not surprise him that his son had picked up on the woman’s condition it concerned him that Ben’s gift of Force Empathy would cause him to be affected by the unspeakable pain she was in, in ways that Luke couldn’t predict. His son had withdrawn from the Force once already because he couldn’t bear the agony of those around him. He didn’t want it to happen again.

“Yes,” Luke admitted. “Don’t pry too far Ben. For your sake and hers. Let Cilghal and the healers deal with it.”

“I won’t,” Ben promised readily to Luke’s surprise. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin.” He paused a beat. “Do you really think she’s the same person as that statue on Corellia?”

Luke gave his son an admonishing look. “You were eavesdropping.”

“Not eavesdropping…just not far enough away to avoid hearing what was said,” Ben hastily justified.

“Eavesdropping,” Luke asserted again.

“Okay. Yes. I was eavesdropping,” Ben admitted then gave Luke an expectant look, waiting for an answer.  Luke shook his head. Grand Master of the Jedi and he still couldn’t always understand the impulsive teenager. Had he ever been that young? It didn’t seem like it sometimes.

“I don’t know,” Luke said. “And none of us will until she’s healed enough to tell us herself.”

“But you have an idea?” Ben pressed. Luke blinked at his son. “But you aren’t going to tell me are you?” Ben sighed. “Are you not going to tell me because it’s a Grand Master thing, a Dad thing or a Master/Apprentice thing?”

“I’m not going to tell you because I’m not certain myself. But speaking as all three…I have a task for you. Cilghal will have her hands full tending to the woman and I can’t hover around the medbay waiting for an update. I want you to be my eyes and ears. Go, watch, observe, help Cilghal if you can but don’t interfere and keep me updated on the woman’s progress. And be mindful of your feelings Ben. If you note anything out of the ordinary, report it immediately. The woman didn’t arrive alone.”

“Are you just asking me to do this to keep me out of your hair?” Ben asked sure with a teenager’s certainty that he was simply being given make-work to keep him from getting in someone’s way.

“No. I’m asking you to do this because you’re your mother’s son and I trust you to be baldly honest. And you’re uniquely suited to pick up things that even Cilghal might miss. Use that investigative training you got with the Galactic Alliance Guard. You won’t be preoccupied trying to repair what’s wrong with the woman. You may see what Cilghal doesn’t because she is too busy.”

Ben brightened considerably with the knowledge that Luke actually needed him and wasn’t assigning him something frivolous to keep him out of harm’s way just because he was his son. “I’m on it Dad. Don’t worry.”

Luke smiled at him, as a Father not as Grand Master or his Master. “I’m not.” He gave his son a little push to speed him on his way and turned to depart himself. “Go.”

“Dad?” Ben called. Luke looked back. “You look good. Better than you have since…since Mom died. Lighter. You have ever since we felt the Force Call from that woman. It’s because of her isn’t it?”

Luke scoffed faintly. “I hardly think that’s the case. You saw how damaged she is. She can’t do anything on her own and she’s been in a hibernation trance I put her in since I found her. There is something about her and she is important, though I don’t know how yet, but that’s all.”

Ben shrugged a shoulder dismissively though his expression was anything but. “Well. Whatever caused it. I’m glad. And if it is because of her…I’m glad she’s here.” He smiled brightly then he rushed off before Luke could say anything else leaving Luke to head for the Council Chambers wondering exactly what all that had meant. It wasn’t until he was almost to the door that he realized…Ben had smiled, really smiled…for the first time since Mara had died.

 

***

The décor of the makeshift Council Chamber could only be described as mining-complex salvage, with age-yellowed sturdiplas furniture and poured plastoid walls the color of dust. The sliding door at the far end of the small chamber—it had probably been a break room when the mine was still in operation—remained open because of a corroded actuator arm that had not been serviced in centuries.

Jaina had made her initial report about the Imperial Remnant attack on the Verpine homeworld and now everyone was discussing it.

The war council—this was not the usual Jedi High Council but one jointly made up of the Jedi’s allies and the Jedi with the sole purpose of guiding the Jedi Coalition’s presence in the war--sat on benches beside a long dining table that had probably once been some color other than stained amber. Their over robes were fastened tight against the chill of a not-quite-repaired environmental control unit. Even Luke was seated, which judging by the mildly surprised expressions of everyone else at the table, had not been usual of late. His face was still serious, studied, his eyes betraying deep thought and still not the clear sky blue she remembered but a more shadowed gray, however his face had lost a great deal of the gauntness and shadows that she had observed before she had left and his eyes weren’t as hollow. Jaina didn’t know why—though she had a strong hunch it had to do with the profound disturbance in the Force--but she was glad for it. They needed him. The galaxy needed him. Now more than ever.

For Jaina that disturbance had come at the worst possible time. She had felt the crippling shockwave while in the midst of battle during the Remnant’s attack on Nickle One with an aerosolized poison that had incapacitated the Verpine immediatley. It had nearly gotten her killed. A fact that warred with the bright shaft of hope that had pierced the mind numbing pain, overwhelming even the bone chilling sense of the darkside entity that had accompanied it. She’d barely pulled it together enough to escape with her life and it had taken ever iota of will she had ever possessed—and a timely placed comm. call from her Mother NOT to follow it because Luke already was—not to speed off in answer to the Force Call. She’d at least felt a little less embarrassed at herself when she had gotten back and her Mother had explained what was going on and that even Luke had been brought to his knees by it.

It seemed so incomprehensible that the woman floating in the bacta field tank that Jaina had only gotten a brief glance of had been the source of that disturbance or the Call. That one person could have unleashed that much power all at once and survived...Jaina couldn’t fathom it. Her Uncle Luke, yes, but anyone else? It seemed impossible.

“…and are we sure Jacen sent them?” Corran Horn was asking. “The Remnant is still an independent government.”

Not wishing to involve herself in the conversation until she was invited—or at least until the time was right—Jaina kept her back to the table and stared out the viewport of the room to the starless black skies. The vista outside the viewport was an inky fog of light-swallowing gases that never thinned and never lifted. A depressing sight.

“This might have been the Moffs’ play,” Corran continued.

“Could be,” said Jaina’s father… Han Solo. In this context—in the company of so many other greats, trying to plan a response to her brother’s latest outrages—it felt wrong to even think of her parents as Mom and Dad. They were bigger than that, along with her uncle Luke, the most legendary of the many legends sitting at that table. “Maybe all Fett did was streamline their decision-making process.”

Nobody laughed. During the wildly confused Battle of Fondor, nearly a quarter of the Remnant’s Moffs had been executed by Boba Fett and his Mandalorians aboard Admiral Pellaeon’s flagship, the _Bloodfin_. Most coalition intelligence agencies had concluded that the survivors would fall into a bitter power struggle and scurry home to protect their turf. But Luke and the Jedi Council had realized that, _somehow_ , the only Moffs who had been trapped aboard when Fett arrived were those who had been a problem during Pellaeon’s reign. The rest had managed to escape and rejoin the main body of the Remnant’s fleet—again, _somehow_.

The Masters had concluded that those _somehows_ were the doing of Pellaeon’s aide, Vitor Reige. They had also realized that a shrewd leader such as Pellaeon would have made provisions to ensure a smooth succession of power after his death. Unfortunately for the Verpine—and the Jedi coalition—it appeared they had been right.

After a long pause in the conversation, Luke said, “I don’t think it matters whose idea it was to enslave the Verpine. If Jacen doesn’t control the Remnant already, he soon will.” There followed another silence during which no one disagreed.

Then Kenth Hamner said, “Which means he’s reaching the tipping point. Once he has full control of the Remnant’s fleets, he’ll be able to project more power than all of his enemies combined.”

“We could always accept Admiral Niathal’s offer to assume supreme command of all coalition forces,” Kyp Durron said, his tone clearly mocking. “That would give us, what, another dozen hulls?”

“At least,” Kenth said, joining the others at the table in a bitter chuckle. “And all she wants in return is to negate our nonaggression pact with the entire Confederation.”

The laughter trailed away into dumbfounded silence, until Jaina’s mom— Princess Leia —said, “All the same, I’d suggest the Council phrase its rejection as politely as possible. It’s never good to alienate a potential ally, no matter how inconsequential they may seem at the time.”

“Thank you for the reminder, Leia,” Kenth said. “I will be careful with my phrasing.”

“In the meantime, we’ll just have to sign up the Chiss Ascendancy,” Kyp said. Jaina could not tell from his tone whether he was still joking or actually believed there was any chance of such an alliance happening. “Then, if we can get the Corporate Sector—”

“Forget the Ascendancy,” Jag interrupted. “You won’t involve Csilla in this. Even if the Nine Ruling Families would take sides against the Imperial Remnant, they won’t get involved with Jedi problems.”

“Still stinging from Tenupe?” Han asked.

“That, and the Jedi habit of telling interstellar governments how to run their sovereign territory,” Jag replied. “No offense meant, of course.”

“Not much taken,” Corran assured him. “At least there’s no question about the coalition’s situation.”

“No question at all,” said Leia. Her voice was dignified and calm, but the Force was smoldering with her frustration. Just days before the Remnant invasion, she and Han had failed to persuade the Verpine to withdraw from their treaty with Mandalore and join the Jedi coalition instead. “I believe the term is ‘borked’. ”

“Sorry, Luke,” Han said. There was a bitter edge to his voice that Jaina suspected only she and her mother would recognize as a personal sense of failure. “We told Siskili what you’ve been seeing when you look into the future. But the Verpine’s mutual-aid deal with Mandalore was exclusive, and he was too afraid of Fett to break it.”

“Nor would Fett let them modify it,” Leia added.

“Buckethead skulo!” Saba spat. “Does Boba Fett think one world of dirt-comberz is the match of thousandz? Mandalore has been hunting too far up the chain, and now the whole jungle will suffer.”

“Fett does what works for Fett,” Han replied. “The rest of us can suck entropy.”

“That’s not true anymore,” Jaina said, turning from the viewport. “Fett has a family now and he has Mandalore. He still cares about his word, too.”

“Then I guess this war has accomplished something,” Leia replied bitterly. She was dressed in a white robe that was only a few shades lighter than the gray wisps now running through her walnut hair. “Boba Fett has grown as a person. And here I was wishing the kriffing war had never started.”

“I’m not defending him,” Jaina replied. She could see the sad pain swimming just beneath the surface of her mother’s brown eyes, and was not surprised to find that it only served to make her appear more regal than ever. “I’m just saying he has more vulnerabilities now, and we should remember that. Of all the things I learned training with Boba Fett, the most important were these two: he isn’t a good guy, and he’ll never be our friend.”

This drew a crooked, deep-wrinkled smile from her father. “I always said you were our smart one.” He was seated next to Leia, who sat on a stool at the end of the table—very much her own woman, but still with Han, as always. It was a stark contrast with Fett’s fifty years of loneliness, and Jaina found herself glancing at Jagged Fel’s square jaw and squarer shoulders, hoping she would survive long enough to someday have what her parents did.

Then Jag caught her looking at him, and his grim frown was replaced by a passably warm smile. Jaina glanced away without returning the gesture, telling herself that she had only been looking in Jag’s direction because Zekk wasn’t present, that she wasn’t ready to think about choosing anyone until she had finished with Jacen. And to do that, she needed to win the support of the Jedi Council.

The first step was to convince Luke and the others that the Jedi had to challenge Jacen no matter how strong he was; that they did not dare hide in the Transitory Mists until they could find some way to shift the balance of power back in their favor. Jaina stepped to the corner of the table closest to her parents. “If I may, I’d like to express an opinion.”

Leia turned toward her with an air of attentiveness, but everyone else seemed taken aback. Her father’s jaw fell, Jag’s gaze grew even more penetrating, and the brows of several Masters rose in shock. During her tenure as a Jedi Knight, Jaina had hardly cultivated the reputation of someone who followed proper procedure.

“You’re requesting permission to talk to us?” Kyp asked. For once, his brown hair was neatly trimmed at his collar, his face was clean-shaven, and his blue robe had only a few wrinkles. “Jaina Solo?”

“That’s right.” Jaina checked her posture, drawing herself up straight and formal. “I think it’s important.”

Kyp whistled in disbelief, then looked to Han. “I don’t know what Fett did to her, but I’ll help you hunt him down.”

“Come on,” Jaina complained. “Can’t a girl learn from her mistakes? I just want to do this right.”

“Then by all means, proceed,” Kenth said. He placed both hands flat on the table and glanced around at the others. “Unless there are objections?”

Saba snorted. “This one did not realize you had such a good sense of humor, Master Hamner.” She let out a long siss of Barabel laughter, her forked tongue flickering between her pebbled lips. “Who would not want to hear this ?”

Jaina was fairly sure she could name two people at the table who were not going to like what she intended to propose, but she nodded her thanks and began. “It’s obvious that we have no hope of actually stopping the takeover of the Verpine munitions industry,” she began. “By the time I left the system, the Remnant had already captured Nickel One and most of the other important hives. With the advantage of their aerosol weapon, it’s clear that they’ll have the rest before the coalition can mount any sort of response.”

“ If we can mount a response,” agreed Corran. “Most of our partners’ fleets are already engaged near their own sectors, and they’re not going to pull out to defend an unaligned system—especially when that system has been selling arms to all three sides.”

“That doesn’t mean we can afford to ignore the Roche system,” Kenth objected. “Once Jacen has control of those munitions factories, the war is over.”

“Not necessarily,” Jaina  said. She could not allow the Jedi to slip into a defensive frame of mind. She had to keep them focused on going after the enemy. “If Jacen can’t get the munitions to his navies, it doesn’t do him any good to control the factories.”

“You think we should forget the Verpine?” Kyp asked.

“Not forget, ” Jaina corrected. “But the Mandalorians are the ones who have the mutual-aid agreement. All I’m suggesting is that we let them honor their contract and leave the asteroid fighting to Fett. In the meantime, we’ll concentrate on what’s important to us and—”

“Raid the supply train,” Kenth finished. “Classic guerrilla tactics—for which we happen to be perfectly positioned.”

“Exactly,” Jaina said. “We make them choose between defending their munitions convoys against a concentrated StealthX campaign, and keeping their fleet in the Roche system to protect their new munitions factories against a Mandalorian counterattack. They don’t have enough hulls to do both missions well, so I’m betting they’ll want to protect their new factories.”

“And that leaves the Jedi free to demolish their freighter capacity,” Jag said. “How many cargo vessels do they have?”

“Um…there wasn’t a lot of time to count,” Jaina admitted. She could have kicked him for jumping to details now, before she had a chance to talk about the other half of her plan, but that was Jag—focused, careful, and alert. “And I wasn’t thinking demolish. More like, um, appropriate.”

“You mean steal, ” her father said, smirking in pride. “I like it. It shows your Solo blood.”

“This one likez it also,” Saba said. “There will be fewer pointlesz killz this way.”

“Yeah, that, too,” Han said. He winked at Leia. “But mostly I’m looking forward to playing pirate again.”

“All you had to do was ask,” Leia replied sweetly. “I’m always happy to clap you in leg irons, flyboy.”

 “Okaaaay,” Jaina said, feeling herself blush. “We really don’t need to hear more—at least I don’t.”

A chuckle ran around the table, then Kenth, all business as usual, brought the discussion back to strategy. “I think we’ve all heard enough to agree this is an idea worth exploring,” he said. “We can refine our tactics when we have a better idea of their shipping capacity, but fundamentally this plan makes sense. We’re just about directly between the Roche system and the Core, so we can knock out their convoys almost at will. And when they do decide to come after us, we can fade into the Mists and take them by ambush. Master Skywalker?”

Luke nodded. “Agreed,” he said without hesitance. It was the first word he’d spoken since the start of the meeting.

Jaina congratulated herself for achieving the first part of her plan. Now all she had left were parts two and three—the hard ones. She summoned to mind the speech she had been rehearsing about how the coalition couldn’t win the war through military might alone; their only real hope was to dismantle the enemy command structure from the top down. But then she glanced in her parents’ direction and saw the pain lurking in the depths of her mother’s brown eyes, and how her father seemed to have aged ten years in the weeks she had been gone, and she knew she couldn’t do that to them. It would be more honest to just come out and say it, to simply tell them about the awful decision she had made not so long ago, looking out over the beautiful Kelita valley with a forgotten Jedi general.

The Jedi would never leave Shedu Maad alive—not unless they hunted down and killed Jacen before he hunted them down. Jaina knew that in her heart. And Jaina had to be the one to do it. She had to kill her brother. It was why she had been training with Boba Fett and the Mandalorians, something that wasn’t exactly orthodox Jedi training. But could she convince the Masters?

But the Grand Master had apparently decided that it was his time to speak even as Jaina drew a deep breath to continue. “Before you say it Jaina, we all know what you came here to ask. And for some time now, it’s been clear to me, and the Council, that our survival—and civilization’s well-being—depends on ridding the galaxy of Darth Caedus. And, we have already discussed it at length. I apologize for not telling you but we wanted to be sure you were ready.”

 “The Masters have already been discussing this option? You already knew I was going to ask…to ask…” Jaina stumbled in shocked surprised.

 “Of course,” said Kyp. “We’re Jedi Masters. Anticipate is what we do.”

“And it will remain one,” Luke said pulling control of the conversation back to him. “However, with circumstances now what they are we must consider the implications and why both the woman currently in our medbay and the darkside entity have turned up _now_. There’s no such thing as coincidence, not when the Force is involved. And it is profoundly involved. As Master Sebaytne said earlier, we have long known that this war will not be won in the physical realm but the mystic. We would be fools to ignore it.”

“Master Skywalker,” Kenth said in alarm, “You aren’t suggesting that we simply sit here and do nothing while Jac—Caedus solidifies his power base?”

“No, of course not. But you can’t deny that you have felt it too. This…arrival…will change everything. Until we know more about why or how I hesitate to commit all our resources to killing Caedus outright.”

“Alright, I can’t say I felt anything. I’m not a Jedi and I’m not even going to try to suggest I know better about Jedi affairs but if you aren’t suggesting we sit here and play sabacc while the galaxy burns what are you suggesting? Because that’s what it sounds like,” Jag asked always the levelheaded strategic mind.  “You’re going to have a hard time convincing the rest of the coalition to sit on their thumbs because ‘Jedi mysticism’ says so.”

He was right of course. Jagged did not discount that mysticism but there were many, especially in the military, who would brush off ‘the will of the Force’ without a second thought in favor of a sound attack strategy any day. With something of a start, Jaina realized that most of the _Jedi_ had forsaken it…her chief among them. When was the last time they had used anything the Force guided them to for something other than battle plans? Jaina couldn’t remember. But that was just how things were now. The way they had to be.

“I don’t have to convince them of anything,” Luke explained. “The plan to attack the Remnant’s convoys is a sound one and one we can’t afford to delay. But it also gives us time.”

“Time for what?” Kyp said. “To wait for that comatose woman who we know nothing about to wake up and give us all the answers? Considering she brought a darkside entity that, as you put it ‘is oblivion with will and intent’, shouldn’t we be concerned with eliminating the threat of Caedus before the darkside entity gains enough power do whatever it is, it is going to do? We can’t fight a war on two fronts.”

“Master Durron is right,” Jaina agreed becoming panicked that Luke was going back on the defensive and withdrawing from the idea of attack. “This is why I have been training with the Mandalorians. Caedus will expect me to fight like a Jedi and I won’t. We can’t afford to wait. We can’t sit here and keep looking for a way to shift the balance back in our favor. We have to do this…soon.”

She had to convince him. She had struggled with the meaning behind being proclaimed _Sword of the Jedi_ the day she was made a Knight and she could still hear her Uncle’s almost involuntary Force inspired words in her head.

_I name you the Sword of the Jedi. You are like tempered steel, purposeful and razor-keen. Always you shall be in the front rank, a burning brand to your enemies, a brilliant fire to your friends. Yours is a restless life, and never shall you know peace, though you shall be blessed for the peace that you bring to others. Take comfort in the fact that, though you stand tall and alone, others take shelter in the shadow that you cast._

Those words had struck Jaina deeply at the time and she had yet to feel that she had in anyway become the ‘Sword of the Jedi’. This was how, this was why. She just knew it. It had to be.

“No we can’t. And we won’t. Raiding the convoys will, as you said, prevent Caedus from supplying his navies with the Verpine’s munitions….and give them to us. But it _does_ buy us time, however slim it maybe for ‘that comatose woman’ to wake up. If when she does it gives us no further insight into ending this war with Caedus and the Galactic Alliance…then we will do what must be done,” Luke said unswayed by her argument to immediate action.

“But you think this woman will,” Corran said. It wasn’t a question it was a statement of observation.

“Yes. I do. This can’t be a coincidence and Caedus is directly connected to it somehow. Killing Caedus won’t be as simple as assassination. He’s too well protected and too powerful. Eliminating him will cost lives. Many of them. The Force has seen fit to give us this woman and while, yes, the darkside entity came with her…I refuse to ignore that gift. I’m asking you to trust me. Trust the Force.”

“We all felt the…sense of hope…even through the doom and dread during the disturbance in the Force. I’m with Luke. We should hold onto that,” Leia said support both Grand Master and brother. Luke gave her a small smile of gratitude for it.

Han grimaced in reluctance. “I can’t believe I’m saying this but I’m with Luke on this one. We’ve got time. Let’s see what it gives us.”

“Agreed,” hissed Saba. “The Force iz stronger than any military and it’z will can not be denied. We muzt not act in haste.”

Luke peered around the table at the others for a response.

Jagged threw his hands up. “I bow to the will of the Force, you know more about Force Visions and Calls.. or whatever it was that happened than I do. But, Jaina being being the ‘Sword of the Jedi’ has to mean something doesn’t it. How can this, eliminating Caedus, not be it?”

Jaina blinked and looked at Jag in surprise. She hadn’t expect the support coming from his corner. Not that kind anyway. She felt her cheeks growing warm and she knew her face was flushed. She very quickly glanced away from him when he looke din her direction before he saw but she couldn’t ignore the warm spot that flared in her heart.

Luke however would not be dissuaded. “Jaina being the _‘Sword of the Jedi’_ has always been something of a mystery. I don’t even know for certain what it means and I’m the one who said it. All I know was that when I did, it was the Force guiding me. Whether being the _Sword of the Jedi_ means she must kill Caedus or something else entirely remains to be seen and jumping to conclusions without being certain would be fool-hardy at best. The truth of it will become clear with time.”

Jaina’s hopes fell. And she was almost angry with Jag when he sighed and tilted his head in agreement with her Uncle. ‘With time.’ She was tired of waiting on the mysterious truth being revealed. She’d been waiting twelve years and still nothing. It had to be this. What other meaning could it have than saving the Order and the galaxy from Caedus?

Kyp sighed. “Fine. I agree. I felt it too. I just…am afraid to hope too hard.”

“We all are,” Luke said. “I think we’ve all been so afraid to now that there is, however mysterious and unlooked for, none of us is quite willing to believe that we could be so…lucky.”

“But not you. You do believe,” Kenth said.

“I do.”

Kenth clenched his jaw, obviously struggling between his life experience as a military officer and a Jedi. “This goes against ever bit of common sense I have but…very well. I am willing to wait…for a time.” Jaina got the distinct feeling that he was agreeing more because he was outnumbered than genuine belief.

“Jaina?” Luke asked. She blinked. She hadn’t expected her opinion to matter. The Council had spoken.

“I…” she stumbled since she hadn’t thought about it. “…okay.”

“That wasn’t exactly a resounding agreement.”

“No. It’s not. I understand the hope you all felt. I felt it too. And I want to believe it but…I can’t. It’s not that I don’t trust your judgment Uncle Luke or the Force…it’s just I think any delay will be the end of us all. Hinging our survival on a ‘maybe’ like this seems...unwise. Caedus is too dangerous. And just because this woman and this darkside entity ‘change everything’ doesn’t mean that it’s going to be good change. There’s too much risk.”

“Are you so eager to kill your brother?” Luke prodded. “You still love him. I feel that.”

“No!,” Jaina protested. “Yes I still love my brother. But that wouldn’t make me hesitate not for a second. He’s not my brother. Not anymore. Jacen died a long time ago…all that’s left now is Caedus. This isn’t about how I feel or revenge. It’s not even about what Caedus has done. It’s about what he will do. That makes this a lot bigger than me or any of us. To just ‘wait and see’ with no guarantee…” 

“The Force never guarantees. But that doesn’t mean you can ignore it,” Leia said gently. Jaina looked at her. Her brown eyes were full of a desperate pleading…a need to believe that maybe, just maybe, out of nowhere there was another way to end this than killing her only remaining son and very possibly losing her daughter in the process.

Jaina sighed and nodded reluctantly. “Alright,” she agreed. “It’s just a delay and if it proves useless then we still have ‘Plan A’.”

Luke inclined his head in grateful acceptance. “Then we are all agreed?” He glanced around the table to each of them.

“Agreed,” everyone said in unison.

“Thank you,” Luke said. “Truly. I promise we won’t let Caedus destroy the galaxy while we ‘wait and see’.”

He might have said more. In fact, his mouth opened as if he intended to but just as quick closed as his head snapped around toward the ajar sliding door at the other end of the small room. Picking up on the same sense of sharp urgency that Luke had, everyone else looked the same direction and the entire Council stood up as one.

Suddenly Ben, her cousin, came careening around the corner of the door frame Artoo hurrying behind him as Ben pelted toward them. Ben or Jedi in general, didn’t run unless there was a good reason. Running Jedi tended to panic the people around them. He pounded to a halt, panting.

“Dad! You are going to want to see this….”


	8. Chapter 8

For an instant, Luke feared that the welter of frantic urgency and his harried arrival was because something had gone wrong with the woman they had saved on Centax-2 but an instant later he knew it was not, Ben’s urgency didn’t have that feel to it. This was something else.

“Calm down,” Luke advised his son as the others gathered closer with worried interest. “What’s wrong?”

Artoo warbled a string of blats and beeps that gave Luke the impression the little astromech wasn’t just upset, he was angry. “You too, Artoo.”

“The news. HNN,” Ben said still trying to catch his breath and not using the Force to aid him. Belatedly he caught himself and shut his eyes briefly drawing in a long deep breath. He let it out, having regained control. He must have come at a dead run clear from the other side of the mining facility, Luke realized.

“What about it?” Master Hamner asked as confused as Luke was.

“Bad. That’s what,” Ben said by way of an explanation, then he glanced down at Artoo. “Did you get all of it?” Ben asked.

Artoo blatted indignantly in response. “Then play it,” Ben insisted.

Artoo beeped again in irritation as though he were fussing at the younger Skywalker for telling him to do what he already intended to and rolled forward toward the old dining table turned Council Meeting table. He tilted himself so that his small holoprojector would emit on top of the table like a holocom unit. Everyone turned back to see what had brought Ben and the little droid to them in such urgency. A holorecording began to play, a recorded feed from the Holonet News.

_‘…rth Caedus…” said a reporter said from behind a podium covered in mic pickups in front of the Senate Building on Coruscant. There was a huge crowd gathered. The reporter moved aside and Caedus, dressed in his ubiquitous black armor stepped into view taking up the position at the podium. Lovely Tahiri Velia—her once blemish-less forehead now scared by three diagonal lines that marked her as having been ‘shaped’ by the Yuuzhan Vong and once a Jedi but turned to the darkside by Caedus who had played on the old wounds left behind by the Vong atrocities she had suffered and her grief over Anakin Solo’s death—with whom she had been in love and he with her--came to stand smartly at his side. His apprentice, dressed in the same dark GAG armor her Master wore. She looked decidedly unhappy. Caedus however was the picture of altruistic concern as he began to address the crowd._

_“It is my sad task to inform the Galactic Alliance of a grave threat during these already depressing times. You all are already aware of the betrayal of the Jedi Order at Fondor and of their continued efforts against the Galactic Alliance…going so far as to form their so called ‘Jedi Coalition’,” he said, standing very straight and self-importantly behind the podium._

But Luke saw something in the Sith Lord’s eyes that did not mesh with his baring or his tone.

“I don’t like where this is going,” muttered Corran.

“It gets worse,” Ben warned.

_Caedus drew a breath as though it pained him to tell the crowd what he was saying. “Six days ago, on Coruscant’s Second moon, Centax-2…I accidently stumbled upon a small group of Jedi, hiding on the moon and plotting terrorist attacks on the Alliance. They were dealt with. And security measures taken.” Caedus paused allowing the crowd to absorb his words and begin to whisper in outraged tones._

“That’s a baldfaced lie!” Jaina exclaimed.

Saba hissed in anger at the fabrication.

“It’s also the same day as the disturbance in the Force happened,” Luke observed calmly. “Caedus is covering his…”

“His own choobies,” Han finished for him furiously.

“And framing the Jedi for it!” Leia said aghast.

Luke waved for them to be quiet as Caedus continued. They were outraged. He saw something else.

_“I believed the incident was an isolated incident…most likely of disgruntled Jedi who were operating without official sanction. Even though the Jedi betrayed the Alliance I did not believe they would stoop to such levels.” Caedus paused and looked down as though these ‘events’ weighted heavily on him. “However, it has come to my attention that three days ago the ship known as the Millenium Falcon and owned by known terrorist Han Solo, my Father,” here his voice hitched precisely as a devastated son’s should, “was seen fleeing Centax-2.” He paused as if to collect himself. The crowd gasped in sympathetic horror._

Luke knew it was all an act. And the one he was putting on did little to hide what lay beneath it to the Grand Master.

“That little…” Jagged seethed as Caedus went on.

  _“It is unknown at this time what intentions he or anyone with him might have had. And we lost a devoted pilot during a security squadron’s attempt to apprehend them. As a safety precaution all travel to or near Centax-2 is strictly prohibited until further notice and security squadrons will be increased. That said, it is now obvious that the Jedi Order has ceased to be the once esteemed organization it once was and become nothing more than a supremely dangerous terrorist group. Therefore, to my great anguish since I had still counted many of the Jedi as my friends…my…family…even if I could not call them our allies…from this point on all Jedi entering Galactic Alliance held space will be consider terrorists, immediately apprehended as such and held for questioning.” He drew a jerky breath as though he could barely say the words. “Any of them found to be participants in terrorist activity will be tried and convicted to the fullest extent of the law.” Caedus swallowed hard and gave the crowd a pained but brave expression. “…up to and including execution.”  There were cries of angry conviction and wails of dismay from the crowd._

Luke noticed with a frown there were far more of the former. Even if Caedus’s speech was using nothing more than semantics—calling an opposing faction in a war terrorists was a common propaganda ploy--and blame placing to cover his own tracks the vein of distrust for the Jedi among the populous was already taking root and it would grow…now with every action they took.  It could take years to undo it even if they won the war. Though the Jedi’s withdrawal at Fondor had unavoidably started that trend already, Caedus was only fanning the flames.

_Caedus let the crowd hew and cry, bowing his head. “Thank you for your time,” he said sadly and stepped away. Tahiri followed silently in his wake._

The holorecording ended.

Artoo shrilled in fury.

Han was so angry Luke could feel his fury in the Force like an overloading arc welder. “I’ll kill him myself!” Leia looked like she was bordering on angry and heartbroken tears.

“Unbelievable,” Kyp muttered through clenched teeth.

Saba was sissing and hissing curses in her native tongue so run together in fury Luke couldn’t decipher them all.

“He’s gone too far, Dad,” Ben said in quiet hurt fury. “First…first…Mom…now this?”

“We have to do something now Uncle Luke,” Jaina insisted bitterly, dark eyes glassy with unshed tears like her Mother’s.

“Still believe we can wait to move against Caedus?” challenged Master Hamner.

Luke, still perfectly calm turned to them. “Now more than ever.”

Everyone gawked at him.

“Stop and think,” Luke counseled. “He didn’t make that speech because he’s making a move against the Jedi. We already know he’ll wipe us out if he gets the chance and he knows we know it. We’re on opposite sides in a war. Han, Leia and I are no strangers to being ‘terrorists’. All that speech was, was war propaganda with a large dose of covering his own exhaust port. He had to know the Jedi would feel that disturbance. He had to know we would come to find out what happened. He’s doing this to cover up whatever his involvement was with the disturbance in the Force. He can’t afford for anyone to find out. It would destroy the ‘one of the people’ façade he’s built around himself. He had to blame the Jedi or be blamed himself if it’s discovered. And it will be sooner or later, the darkside entity is still out there. There’s no one else capable of what happened but either the Jedi or the Sith. They’d turn on him if he didn’t. He’s terrified.”

“Then we should strike while he’s weak,” Jaina insisted. “While we have the advantage.”

Luke shook his head. “No. I won’t be dissuaded from our current course of action. We _don’t_ have the advantage. Not yet. This only serves to convince me that I’ve made the right choice.”

“He’s right Jaina,” Jag said and Jaina turned to glare at him. He shrugged apologetically. “When was the last time you saw Caedus terrified?”

Jaina started to protest, realized he had a point and then dropped silent.

Han scrubbed a weary hand over his face. “Luke’s right,” he said letting his hand drop with a slapping sound as it hit his thigh. “The only thing Caedus has ever been scared of is Luke. If this has him shaking in his boots. We’d be idiots not to find out why before we do anything.” Then he grimaced viciously again. “I still want to throttle him though.”

Leia let out a long sigh that was as tired as her husband’s face scrubbing. “When he’s right. He’s right.”

“Why does he have to _always_ be right?” Kyp complained weakly. It was more a matter of stubborn pride than disagreement.

Saba sissed in amusement, her tongue flicking in and out. “Becauze he iz the Grand Master.”

Master Hamner sighed as well and held his hands up, palms upturned. “As you say.”

“Good,” Luke said glad to have calmed the waters among them again.

“But you do realize that this means bad things for the future? The public of the Galactic Alliance was already beginning to distrust us. This will not help,” Corran said.

“I do. But Corran, it would have happened whether Caedus made that speech or not. We both know that.”

Corran blew out a long breath. “Unfortunately.”

“Now. Calm yourselves. The Force is with us,” Luke told them. The gathering assented in varying tones of tired and quiet acquiescence and began to depart the room but Luke held Ben back with a soft touch on his shoulder.

“Any update on our mystery woman?” he asked his son. Ben’s shoulders sagged further than they had already.

“Not really, no. When I left to come tell you about the news report Master Cilghal was just starting to get some of the tests results back.”

“But?” Luke pressed. He could sense that there was something his son was reluctant to say.

Ben looked up at him then, blue eyes the mirror of his Father’s but now all worried fourteen year old. “I’m no doctor  but… I don’t think the results looked good Dad.”

Luke’s jaw tightened. He gave Ben’s shoulder a comforting squeeze. “Give Cilghal time,” he encouraged though he felt a small knot of apprehension form in his stomach. He knew how badly damaged the woman was.

“It’s not just that. I…watched and listened like you asked. I got this… I don’t know it’s really vague. I think because she’s still in the hibernation trance maybe but this sense of…something. Something twisted. But I couldn’t get a handle on it. It’s like when something hovers just out of your field of vision but when you turn your head it’s not there.” 

Luke frowned. Was Ben picking up on the ‘venom’ that he had inside the woman’s spirit? Or was it something else?

“Did you tell Cilghal?”

“Yes but she couldn’t pick up on it at all. She thinks it’s just me sensing how hurt the woman is because she said that there’s a ‘wrongness’ inside her like a slow acting poison but it’s in her spirit not her body.”

Luke nodded. “Yes. Something very like that.”

“But Dad, I did sense that ‘wrongness’ this… it wasn’t quite the same. It was like it was part of it but not _it_.”

Luke’s frown deepened. He hadn’t picked up on anything like what Ben was describing either but then Ben was the better Empath.  “Keep doing what you’re doing, Ben. You’re doing a good job.”

Ben nodded, his brows pinched together with worried uncertainty but his Force aura suffused with a wash of quite pride at his Father’s praise to go with that worry. “Yes sir.”

Luke shooed him back to it and Ben went, Artoo puttering after him apparently having decided to play Ben’s message courier. When he was gone, Luke allowed himself a skyward look and a long deep breath, letting it out wearily. The Force was with them…but this wasn’t going to be easy. Then again, it never was.

 

***

 

Two days later, the first of the suggested strike and run raids on the Imperial Remnant’s (and therefore the Galactic Alliance via Caedus) supply convoys from the Verpine munitions factories had begun and Master Cilghal had deemed the mystery woman healed…physically at least and ready for removal from the bacta tanks. Ben, who had dutifully been doing as Luke asked but been unable to gain anymore insight into the ‘something’ he had sensed than before, had informed him immediately. Luke had attempted to detect it but like Cilghal, sensed nothing. That however did not make him discount his son. Whatever it was Ben was sensing that they were not would become clearer in time.

And all the while, lying like a unwavering star in the heart of a storm, was the bright core of her spirit…quiet, resolute, waiting…and always just within the edge of Luke’s senses.

Thus Luke found himself in the small but well-equipped if not state of the art medbay staring down at the woman—now garbed in a plain white medical gown--who lay on a body conforming hospital bed, a thin silvery thermal sheet drawn over her from foot to shoulders to keep off any chill as Cilghal explained to him the progress that had been made …and that hadn’t been.

Ben hovered nearby with anxious curiosity assisting Cilghal’s former apprentice Tekli, the little golden-brown furred Chandra-Fan as she busily hastened about while Luke listened to Cilghal. There was a definite air of sad resignation in the room that made the normally calm and peaceful atmosphere seem dreary and thick. The life monitors hooked to the woman, whose exceedingly long gold hair had been bound back out of the way, barely beeped and whirred, her vitals slowed until they were almost undetectable within the hibernation trance but very much alive. Force powers tended to play havoc with medical readings unless you knew what you were looking at.

“Physically the woman is completely healthy. All her injuries have healed superbly and with Tekli’s assistance, she and I were able to heal the ‘channels’ that were burned by the woman’s use of the Force,” Cilghal explained barely containing the flicker of digusted anger at the idea of what had been done to the woman.

Severing a force-user from the Force was considered the most devastating, powerful and violating attack that one could be subjected to. To be cut off from the Force entirely was…horrible beyond imagining and Caedus tended to take great pleasure in using it as a torture technique. But this…Luke understood Cilghal’s disgust and anger…this was _worse_. To have your connection to the Force turned against you so that touching it literally burned you from the spirit out was…Luke couldn’t think of words to describe the vileness of it or the depth of violation it bespoke. His skin crawled even thinking about it.

“But?” Luke prodded Cilghal knowing and feeling that she did not want to bestow bad news on him.

The Mon Calamri healer drew a long breath. “We identified the source of the corruption which caused the searing of the ‘channels’. It’s the…,” she paused trying to find a descriptive, her large eyes heavy lidded with consternation. “...poison… in her spirit. We tried everything we could think of, tried to purge it. But to no avail. We’d make progress only to realize that our efforts were useless because there is a constant steady flow of it coming through the…bleeding hole…in her spirit. We managed to staunch the ‘bleeding’ but…we can’t stop it and we can’t heal it. The hole is ‘bandaged’ I guess you would say but the poison is still seeping through and it will continue to do so unless we find a way to heal that…hole and seal the entry point. It won’t stop her from being able to use the Force and it’s not corrupting her to the darkside, but…” The gentle healer shrugged helplessly.

Luke sighed heavily, understanding the implication. “…every time she touches the Force it will cause her untold agony and leave her wounded in spirit because she can’t heal the damage without making it worse.”

“Yes,” Cilghal said sadly. “We can heal the burned channels for her when they are damaged but…”

“But it’s only temporary, the moment she uses the Force again the process starts all over.”  Luke ran a hand through his hair with frustration and unwanted memories, flashing back to his wife Mara’s years long battle against her infection by Coomb Spores by the Yuuzhan Vong that had nearly taken her life, nearly rendered the possibility of them ever having children together impossible and left her in a constant state of pain and fatigue. If she hadn’t been a Jedi it would have killed her outright.

But at least Mara had been able to use the Force to combat it, to hold it at bay despite the fact it had worn her to thread in the process. This woman couldn’t even do that. It was as though someone or something had turned the very thing that made her what she was against her. It _sickened_ him.

 “Yes,” Cilghal bitterly and Luke didn’t need the Force to tell she felt the same way. And yet that bright core of the woman remained steadfastly unfazed by it. That gave Luke hope.

“So she’s effectively severed from the Force unless she wants to endure a life of agonizing pain,” Ben spoke up coming closer. He shook his head dismally. “Then why not just do _that_ instead of,” he swallowed as though he were forcing bile back down his throat,” _this_?”

“Because the one who did this wanted her to suffer,” Luke said his voice as bitter as Cilghal’s.

“Caedus?” Ben said anger rising in him at the thought that even he could perpetrate something this…vile.

“No. The darkside entity. It had to be. Even Caedus couldn’t have done this, he’s not that powerful. It had to have done this to render her helpless to fight it and torture her at the same time,” Luke said. It was the only thing that made sense.

“Then it fears her,” Cilghal said.

“And hates her,” Ben added. He shook his head with disgust. “And I thought the Embrace…was bad…” He trailed off unable to finish the statement. Luke frown at his son’s remembered pain.

Ben had been Caedus’s first choice as an Apprentice. Ben had suffered at Caedus’s hands in a Yuuzhan Vong Embrace of Pain—an excruciating and depraved torture device—as his cousin tried to use his agony, severing him from the Force temporarily to prevent any mitigation of the pain and convince him that Luke was dead—to turn him to the darkside. Caedus had failed—thanks to Luke’s timely rescue of his son--and settled for Tahiri Veila. Ben still bore the mental scars of the experience and Luke knew he always would. He had healed in mind and spirit but he’d always remember.

Ben chewed his lower lip in thought and both Cilghal and Luke waited for him to reveal his thoughts. “Maybe…maybe it did _this_ instead of severing her from the Force because it _can’t_.”

Cilghal blinked in surprised admiration at the younger Skywalker’s insight. And Luke, looking again through the Force at the unassailable radiant core of the woman’s spirit, though he might be right.

“Your insight serves you well,” he said not hiding his pleasure at his son’s accomplishment. “I think you’re right. And I don’t think it’s because it doesn’t have the power to. It’s frighteningly powerful, we all felt that. I think it’s because of _her_ …something within her that it can’t touch.”

Ben shrugged as though it had been nothing. “Follow the evidence. The simplest answer is usually the right one. Just good investigative technique,” he brushed off but Luke felt his pride at his Father’s praise.

“I am immeasurably pleased that _some_ part of the woman might be untouchable by that vileness,” Cilghal said, “but it hardly matters. Here I’ll show you.” She to turn on a monitor affixed over the woman’s hospital bed at head height for anyone standing next to it.

Delicately, because her larger-than-human hands were ill suited to the task, she depressed a number of keys beneath the monitor. The monitor screen snapped into life, showing a series of five jagged lines, like simple graphical representations of extremely precipitous mountain ranges, one above the other.

“This,” Cilghal explained, “is a brain scan, set to display brain wave forms. It can be set to show many different types of data in different types of graphical representation. This is the scan of a normal being—myself, as a matter of fact. Now I will show you the woman’s scan.” She clicked another series of buttons. The image on the screen was wiped away, replaced by the same five lines the previous one had, the same extremely precipitous mountain ranges above one another…all but two. One displayed jagged peak-and-trough lines so tightly packed, so extreme and savage that Luke took an involuntary step back from the display. The one beneath that one ran flat and unerringly straight, only to suddenly display a short void and then resume.

Luke listened intently while Ben listened and fretfully chewed his nails. Luke worried about the effect seeing this…brutality… would have on his son but he allowed him to remain. Ben was also his apprentice and Luke had realized some time ago he couldn’t shelter him forever.

His over protectiveness—born out of his natural inclinations to be fiercely protective of his loved ones and the sheer joyful impossibility of Ben’s birth--had driven an unwitting wedge between them for years and it hadn’t been until he’d lost Mara that he’d realized if he didn’t let his son grow up…he’d lose him too. And Luke couldn’t have borne  that. He had too big a hole in his soul as it was, where Mara used to be. He had to treat Ben as he would any other Jedi. And there was never likely to be another chance for him to learn from something like this. At least Luke hoped with everything he had there never would be.

Cilghal gestured to the top three lines of the display. “These are her base functions. Instinct. Learned skill. Survival response. Language. Reasoning. All perfectly normal.” She pointed to the next line, the one that looked like a savage tear. “This is her amygdala and hippocampus. Emotion and memory. Since her memory is flashburned we expected to find some degree of damage but this is…massive.” She pointed to the last line, the smooth but broken one. “This is the center of the brain that is responsible for personality, sense of self, one’s self-awareness. We can’t figure out why it’s flat or why it’s broken. No one has ever seen a reading like this. It’s as though whoever she was is…dormant and full of holes if it’s there at all. Because even attempting to reach it through the Force is all but impossible. If there is anything behind the chaos of the flashburn…we can’t find it.”

“What do you mean, ‘can’t find it’?” Luke asked alarmed. That wasn’t the impression he had gotten at all. He _knew_ she was in there. He’d seen it, felt it.

“When it became apparent that attempting to heal the charred ‘wall’ between the rest of her mind and her memory would cause the entire thing to collapse and drive her utterly insane we tried to reach out to her, not her primitive mind but _her_. We found nothing there. If it is there…it refuses to respond and even attempting to reach her primitive mind has proved fruitless unless we force it. It recoils from any attempt to reach it and seizing it by force would destroy the thin brittle wall in her mind instantly. She’d be dead before anyone could stop it.”

“It _is_ there. I’ve seen it and felt it. You can’t?” Luke asked rather taken aback that Cilghal couldn’t. It was small, miniscule even but the core of her shone so brightly it would have been painful to look at it were it not for how calm and peaceful it was. He also didn’t understand why Cilghal, a incredible healer who surpassed even Luke’s skill, couldn’t reach the woman’s primitive mind when he had so easily. Cilghal shook her head sadly but she eyed Luke with curiosity for an instant.

“First Ben sees things I don’t. Now you do. This is a most interesting situation.”

Luke glanced down at the woman on the bed in concern and confusion but undaunted. She lay there, full dark blonde lashes laying against her cheeks, looking utterly peaceful in the hibernation trance belying the utter devastation beneath. “I reached her primitive mind without any trouble.”

“Then perhaps Master Skywalker you can manage what we could not. But…even if you can…touching the wall will make it crumble too fast for us to stop. It’s as frail as if it were built of ash. Her memories will flood out like a torrent that painfully destroys everything in its path.”

“So what you are saying is that no matter what we do…it’s hopeless?” Luke asked. He shook his head vehemently. “I refuse to believe that.” He _would_ find a way. “She can’t be left like…like,” he waved his hand animatedly toward the essentially comatose woman, “ _that_ for the rest of her life. _No one_ should be left like that.” The very thought was abhorrent in the extreme.

“I don’t want to believe it but I have no idea how to proceed,” Cilghal said, throwing her flippered hands up in a helpless gesture.

“I do,” Ben said suddenly. Luke and Cighal turned to look at him.

“Please, enlighten us,” Cilghal encouraged without a bit of mocking.  Ben flushed briefly.

“I…well,” he said. “This ‘wall’ it a sort of dam between her memories and the rest of her mind right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, if you can’t touch it… because it would fall apart and let everything out at once….then…what if you built another dam in front of that one?”

“A good suggestion,” Cilghal observed. “But then even if we healed and removed the first dam the memories would still be trapped behind the second. That might allow the woman to survive, true. But she would be an automaton shell. How then are we to address that?”

“Okay so maybe not a dam, a levee then. Or a support scaffold. So the memories could still come out as you fix the weak dam and remove it but that would keep the flood manageable.”

Cilghal looked truly impressed. “A better suggestion,” she said. “However, the issue remains that the woman’s primal mind evades all attempts to reach it.” It wasn’t said smugly or negatively. It wasn’t Cilghal shooting down Ben’s ideas. It was her collaborating with another to figure out where the next piece of a complex puzzle went.

“But she let Dad without any problems. Maybe she will again. He could do it and be the support dam while you fix things.” Ben suggested.

If Cilghal had possessed eyebrows they’d have been half up her head by now. Luke’s were. If she hadn’t been possessed of a perpetually regal baring she’d have been bouncing from foot to foot with enthusiasm. Luke nearly was.

“An _excellent_ suggestion,” Cilghal said unable to keep her excitement from her voice. Then she sobered. “But to accomplish such a task would take at least three. Master Skywalker to be the dam and make contact. I to heal and another to manage the woman’s pain. For even with the flood managed it will still be a painful process. And all would have to work in perfect unison, even the slightest deviation would be devastating. How then shall we accomplish it?”

“A Jedi Meld,” Luke said instantly. Now Ben and Cilghal were staring at him.

“But Master Skywalker I thought that the Jedi Meld was strictly for unifying a group of Jedi in combat,” Cilghal said blinking at him.

Luke shrugged. “Thus far that is all it has been used for. But my understanding of its origins suggests that might not always have been so.”

“But Dad,” Ben protested quietly, worriedly. “Wouldn’t that be dangerous? If anyone falters…at all…” Ben had never participated in a Jedi Meld but he knew the risks.

The Jedi Meld, or Force Meld was a refinement of Jedi battle meditation. However, while battle meditation worked ‘outside’ the minds of both force-sensitives and non-forcesensitives, allowing the wielder to bolster the morale, stamina and overall prowess of the combatants it was used on, the Jedi Meld was a fusion of  only trained force-sensitive minds to create a single entity mind from multiple minds and giving them unparalleled coordination.

It took a Master of great power and depth in the Force to create a single entity state without killing or destroying the minds of everyone involved and still allow each mind to retain its identity while being a part of the whole. And the meld worked both ways. If anyone in the meld were to experience great pain or death while still joined to the others’ minds it would bring devastating effects on all of them, sometimes to such a degree that the participants lost control of their own minds. A very strong risk in a deliberate meld with someone who was guaranteed to be in excruciating pain. Thus why it had never yet been used in conjunction with Force healing. To attempt it with someone as damaged as this woman bordered on the insane…or the desperate.

“Yes,” Luke admitted to his son.

“Very dangerous,” Cilghal agreed with Ben. “Should anything happen we would be swept along in the same torrent that she would.”

“It’s a risk I’m willing to take,” Luke said.

Frantic worry washed off Ben but if he wanted to protest the idea again or take back what he’d said that had led them to it, he firmly bit his tongue. Cilghal stood there considering it herself. It took her only a moment.

“As am I.” She looked away from them, toward her former apprentice who had been carefully quiet, Tekli. The Chadran-fan was notoriously shy. “Will you assist us and be our third, Tekli? I assume you were listening.”

The barely meter tall Chandra-fan swiveled her large bat-like ears faintly amused at the double-entendre that could be inferred. “Yes. I was. And of course I will.”  Tekli was only marginally force-sensitive but she was second only to Cilghal as a healer and devoted to a fault to the Jedi Path. In the Jedi Meld her natural lack of force-sensitivity would be no issue at all, since she would have both Luke and Cilghal’s power to augment her own and she, like Luke, had Melded before. Cilghal hadn’t.

“Thank you,” Cilghal said giving Tekli a head-bow of gratitude. Then she gave a little back and forth shimmy. A Mon Calamarian gesture of amusement, large eyes glittering at Ben. “You would make a passable Jedi Healer. Perhaps I will steal you from Master Skywalker and make you my own apprentice.”

Ben flushed but he was rightly proud of himself and Luke of him.

“Not in this lifetime!” Luke declared and reached out pulling his son into a hug, surprising the boy and mock-daring Cilghal to try. Cilghal shimmy-laughed again.

“Thank you too, son,” he said. “I’m proud of you. Excellent insight. Without it, we might never have considered this.”

“Just don’t make me regret it. Be careful, Dad. And it wasn’t that big a deal,” Ben muttered and then awkwardly when Luke hadn’t released him from the hug yet. “Dad, you’re embarrassing me.”


	9. Chapter 9

Luke, Cilghal and Tekli sat gathered around the woman in the hospital bed, all deeply in meditation, deaf and blind to the outside world as Ben stood sentry, ready to fetch help if something went wrong. Since Luke had the most experience with the Jedi Meld of the three of them, he would be doing the ‘heavy lifting’ in this scenario and it was him who must reach out to the woman’s mind in the hopes she would accept his mind-touch when she evade the others…it was Luke who took the lead.

He reached out first to Tekli, who having done the Meld before herself, joined her mind to his with ease. Then Luke reached out for Cilghal who didn’t hesitate to accept the invitation though she did so carefully, unfamiliar with the skill but her mind meshed seamless with his and Tekli’s after a moment when she got the ‘feel’ of it. Had Luke been doing this with the Jedi Starfighter Squadrons there would have been no delay, no easing into it. They had all done it so many times that the reaching and joining of minds was all but instant.

Melded as they now were, they could work as a perfectly coordinated unit and could speak directly to one another albeit in only short four or five word sentences. In a meld where the participants shared deep ties of family and friendship, or had melded on previous occasions longer sentences became possible and in the deepest melds speaking became superfluous. One mind knowing what the others did or thought in the instant they thought it.

 _::I’ll led us in::_ Luke sent.

 _::We’ll wait for your signal::_ Cilghal thought back

Tekli said nothing but Luke felt her settle down to wait.

They had plotted out exactly how they wanted to do this. If it would go as planned remained to be seen but they had one in any case.

Luke would go in first, releasing the woman from the hibernation trance and gaining her acceptance again. Then he would set up his own wall, and hold himself and the woman behind it. After that was done, Tekli would swoop in and set herself to control the inevitable pain the woman would suffer and try to negate as much of it as possible. That would allow Cilghal to slip in and begin the hardest work of tediously repairing the wall of ash that was the only thing between the woman and insanity…or agonizing death.

Tekli and Cilghal would deliberately block themselves from the woman’s flood of memories so they could work, a feat they’d only be capable of because they would be drawing from their pooled power, but Luke would have no such luxury. He would get the full brunt of them and have to withstand it… whether it was maintained at the desired slow flow or it came gushing out in a roaring torrent…or they’d all be lost. But Luke was stalwartly determined he _would_ succeed. Do or do not. There is no try.

Steeling himself, Luke reached out for the woman’s primal mind as delicately and gently as he had before. Because she was still in the hibernation trance he had put her in, he didn’t have to worry that his first mind-touch would cause her the white-hot pain it had before but once she was awoken he would. Though until Tekli could come in to control her pain he hoped that the woman would again trust him to help her and bear the pain for a short while.

He gently he touched her primal mind, and released her from the hibernation trance. Instantly, it snapped to life and Luke delicately brushed his mind with hers, the barest feather-light caress to get her attention before she work completely and went leaping off the hospital bed in shock. He got an immediate response through the blaze of pain the mind-touched caused her. A wordless but definitive, ::!?!?!?!::, as she tried to pull away from him.

 _::I saved you. Remember?::_ Luke thought calmly but quickly, knowing that the words themselves would not reach her, not through her primal mind but the intent might.

::???:::

He got distinctive impressions, not words but…intent. Less imperative, less panicked. Not recoiling. Suffering the pain. Waiting. She remembered.

_::Let me help you again.::_

::??::

Still receptive. Curious.

::You are injured.::

::?::

She knew that. But what could he do about it?

_::Let me join our minds::_

_::!!!!::_

Outright panic and denial…and immediate withdrawl.

::Wait. Please!.:: Luke sent afraid that he wouldn’t be able to gain her trust only to be rebuked so violently that it was like being physically hit.

::NO! HURT!::

It didn’t come as words but that was most definitely what it meant. She was desperately afraid. He was astounded he’d gotten something so close to sentience from her primal mind.

::Yes but heal too:: Luke sent along with calmness and peace. ::I’ll protect you.:: It did no good.

He got the distinct notion she was frustrated in the extreme and then…

::Hurt you! NO!::

Luke was stunned and had he not been touching her mind and able to read others feelings he might have mistaken the not-words for a threat but it was the exact opposite. It wasn’t that she didn’t want his help. She knew on some level how damaged she was and what would happen. She didn’t want to let him help because she was afraid it would hurt _him_ , that was what she was afraid of not the pain or for herself. Then Luke understood, felt, how he’d gotten such ‘sentient thought’ from her primal mind. Protecting others was a part of her down to her instincts. It wasn’t conscious thought it _was_ primal…as was the feeling of deep _shame_ that followed. He couldn’t begin to understand why she’d feel _shame_ of all things.

Luke wasn’t sure how to get past her primal mind’s mandate to protect. He couldn’t reason with it the way he could _her_ if he could have reached her. But maybe if he let her primal mind see his, to see that he really did want to help even if it hurt him to do so.  Luke let go of his higher reasoning, let the basic drives that fueled who he was surface and then left himself open to her.

_::See? I want to.::_

_::No.::_

It was still determined but less forceful. Luke mentally sighed, beleaguered but unwilling to give up. Apparently stubborn was also primal for the woman. That was alright. Luke was perfectly prepared for and experienced with arguing with stubborn women. He’d been married to Mara Jade.

::Please. You’re in pain::

::No::

::Yes::

::No::

::The darkside entity is out there::

That gave her pause and he felt her primal mind warring with itself. Protect him or protect the galaxy? But her primal mind was too conflicted to make a choice.

::Trust me:: Luke pleaded and ‘held out’ his ‘hand’.

Another pause. And reluctant acceptance. Duty demanded, she answered. Her primal mind reached out for him and on contact he was instantly enveloped in the white-hot pain their minds touching was causing her. It was pure agony.

::Tekli!:: Luke called urgently, astounded the woman’s primal mind had been perfectly willing to ‘argue’ so long feeling this. He felt the Chadra-Fan healer’s warm presence ease in to the woman’s mind, flitting like a butterfly from one place to another as she cut off the pain as best she could and Luke held on to the woman’s primal mind.

::Done!:: Tekli sent and faded into the background to maintain the pain control.

Luke drew the woman’s primal mind closer until she was deeply held within the meld and hopefully shielded from the worst of what was to come. She let him. She’d made the choice. She would let him do what he would and trust.

Then with great attention and concentration he ‘built’ his own wall. Thick and high to withstand anything that battered against it, like the wall of a fortress but not as high as her frail wall of ash that he was tediously careful not to touch. When he was as certain as he could be that his wall would hold he rooted his mind to the spot, made sure he had a durasteel grip on the woman’s primal mind and sent…

::Cilghal. Now.::

The Mon Calamrian’s mind was cool as the waters of her homeworld but infinitely more calm. She didn’t delay to marvel at what she ‘saw’ or felt, she went straight to work with all the quiet, swift but calculated, determination of a healer conducting major emergency surgery in an operating theater. And just as she had warned, the instant she touch the wall it fell away into so much dust and the woman’s memories slammed into Luke’s secondary wall with brutal force.

It was like being rammed by a Star Destroyer with all turbolasers firing since technically the wall _was_ him. It was blindly painful but Luke held against it as Tekli, swooped around again bringing it under control. The woman stood her ground, she didn’t curl into him in any attempt to escape the pain but nor did she pull away. She only ‘held on’ tighter, stood with him against the onslaught and Luke’s wall held. He could feel the woman’s memories welling up behind it as they flooded against it, rising ever higher even as Cilghal hurried to stem the tide.

 _::Here it comes. Hold on::_ Luke sent.

The flood reached the top, spilled over. And then Luke Skywalker was living someone else’s life through their eyes….

 

***

 

Luke was both pilot and passenger, seeing her memories, feeling what she felt as she had  at once a part of it and outside it at the same time…and completely unable to control it. He felt a sense of chagrined guilt despite the necessity. To have one’s entire life laid bare to a stranger was the ultimate in vulnerability and from the woman he sensed a sad sort of resignation. She didn’t want to remember but she would…because she had to. So Luke stood against the tide and let it wash over him as it willed.

At first it was chaotic. A cacophony of half remembered voices and shattered images. But soon, as Cilghal worked, it became a coherent current, a chronicle of a life lived more vivid than any holovid.

The beginning wasn’t really a memory so much as a slice of knowledge. A set of simple facts without emotion for she had not had the chance to develop emotions about them.

The woman had been born in BTC 9 during the last third of the Great Galactic War even as the Republic’s hopes for victory against a returned and immensely strong Sith Empire--thousands upon thousands upon thousands of Sith led by an unseen Emperor--were blasted to spacedust on a far-flung planet on the edges of the Unknown Region to a pair of high-ranking diplomats, far from the fighting. Their names or the name of her homeworld were unknown to her for before she’d been a week old she’d been given over to the Jedi Order, at their urgent behest, and spirited away to the Jedi Fosterers at the Jedi Praxeum on Teya IV where all the younglings too young to begin Initiate training had been moved from the Jedi’s Head Quarters on Coruscant in order to protect the Order’s future Jedi during the war.

Luke had to do some quick thinking for he was seeing things as she had and date of her birth was unfamiliar to him until he remembered that he had heard of the Great Galactic War, albeit only in passing through the Jedi Holocron…the one Exar Kun had melted to a puddle of goo. He knew nothing of what the war had been fought over or even who the combatants were. Only that it had happened. But through her he knew what BTC stood for. _Before the Treaty of Coruscant_ and with a mind used to calculating hyperspace coordinates at will he correlated the date to the dating system he knew. 3662 BBY.

She _was_ a Jedi…a very _old_ Jedi.

Luke did not give in to the flare of shocked and enlivened curiosity that sprang up within him as he would have in his youth. The desire to know the how and the who. He carefully kept it in check. He would wait. His questions would be answered.

And so he watched the infant grow.

Her strength in the Force showed itself very early, if quietly. A profoundly gentle and empathetic but outgoing child she demonstrated a great propensity for knowing when, why and what to do when any of the other younglings were in distress. A youngling in a crying fit caused by a stubbed toe while learning to walk would elicit her comfort, soothing the youngling far more quickly than even the Fosterers could and if they showed the least bit of lost confidence she could without fail bolster them until they forgot they had ever doubted themselves. Her talents made her a natural leader and something of the defacto ‘big sister’ to the other younglings—even those older than she--of whom she was fiercely protective and they of her.  The loyalty she seemed to inspire drove the other younglings to follow her example and bad behavior was virtually unheard of.

By the time she was three years old, of age in those times to be placed within a clan, she had managed to garner not only the strong admiration and affection of her peers but also of her caretakers. So when the Fosterers finally agreed to assign her to the Dragon clan, to Luke’s confusion since he knew, because she knew, that the Dragon clan was meant for the future warriors, the Guardians, of the Order—completely not in keeping with the girl’s gentle nature--there was a great deal of sadness that she was leaving the Praxeum and their care.

Confused but accepting Luke let go of the fact that he practically wanted to scream at them that she should have been sent to a clan for Consulars. That was what Luke would have done. But this was the past and could not be changed and he let the memories take him again.

Despite the Order’s hard line approach of no attachment, there was little concern at the time that the affection she was borne by her caretakers was anything but the parental nature that all Fosterers were expected to have and the younglings’ distress was attributed to nothing more than the as yet uncontrolled emotional state of the very young. But Luke thought otherwise. There was something else about it, something he recognized as akin to his own son’s Force Empathy—which he was certain she possessed--but different.

However, the significance was apparently overlooked and the little girl, as upset over leaving as the others, was sent to the moon Alaris Prime-- the satellite of the gas giant Alaris on the outer edge of the Kashyyyk System, home to both the Wookies and the Trandoshans--to the care of Jedi Fosterers at the Jedi Temple hidden deep within the moon’s rainforests with the other younglings placed in the Dragon Clan.

There she proved to be as strong in the principles of combat— suggesting that Luke’s initial thought that she was more suited to be a Consular than a Guardian might be wrong--as she was empathetic and gentle. She quickly took to the art in practice despite her innate gentle nature, proving adeptness far beyond her years or training.

However, if became apparent to the Order, as it had to Luke, that as she aged that the girl’s ability to inspire and comfort others and the resulting loyalty and affection those she was around came to bear her in return was not just the simple, expected (and accepted) unity of familiarity or her Force Empathy.  For some reason the girl nor Luke could understand, even though he was aware of the Old Order’s stance on attachment, the Order was deeply, fearfully alarmed. The Great Galatic War with the Sith and the ravages it was causing—for the war still raged and the Republic was losing to devastating effect--had instilled a terror of losing any of their number to the darkside as their numbers were steadily decimated by battle.

So the eight-year-old girl—who would no longer be allowed to spend more than a handful of years in any one place for fear of her forming attachments to those around her--was sent from Alaris Prime to the Jedi Enclave on Mustafar. The same hellish, volcanic world on which Luke’s Father had finally become Darth Vader completely, where he’d sealed his mother’s and his children’s fates. There she continued to excel, astounding her teachers while also having the tenant of non-attachment reinforced constantly in her teachings in an effort to quash—to Luke’s appall—any attachment she might develop even the bonds of friendship and her teachers kept an aloof distance from her leaving the girl without anyone to confide in.

The result was that the humble and obedient girl—certain that if it frightened her elders it must be wrong as only a child could be--strove mightily to obey the Order’s rule of non-attachment,  burying her natural gentle and empathetic nature under the doctrine of the Order and becoming an exemplary servant of the Order though she never understood nor agreed with their desire for no attachment of any kind. The cost of her sacrifice was that the young Initiate refrained from any friendships but the barest needed with her fellow Initiates or teachers, leaving the young girl surrounded by others but eternally alone. Something she privately struggled with but never revealed.

During her time on Mustafar the Great Galactic War reached its horrifying pinnacle (and end) when the Empire offered (under the guise of having suffered too many losses themselves) to agree to peace talks. The Jedi officially recommended that the Senate not accept, believing it to be a trick. The Senate agreed but the Republic had already been so devastated by the nonstop warfare—28 years of it-- that the Senate decided to entertain the talks so that their war battered and exhausted troops could at least gain a short respite…and hopefully give the Republic a chance of survival if the Jedi’s warning proved true.

It did. To devastating effect. Having held back much of what was left of his fighting force the unseen Emperor unleashed it simultaneously on several locations. Particularly against the Jedi and Coruscant.  At the very moment that the sham peace talks were taking place on Alderaan, the Emperor’s forces attacked Coruscant and a number of the more well known Jedi Enclaves. Mustafar by some miracle of the Force was spared, apparently not seen by the Emperor as a large enough prize to bother with. While some few escaped from the Enclaves, no Jedi on Coruscant was spared.

The Jedi Temple, Head Quarters of the Order, was destroyed out right and all within slaughtered, including the entire Council. Coruscant, Capital of the Republic was blockaded and sacked, the Supreme Chancellor killed by the Emperor’s most powerful Lieutenant, Darth Angral. Then the ‘peace talks’ on Alderaan became a demand for surrender.

The girl, only nine at the time, watched it all in recorded holos  on the Holonet news after the fact, helplessly. But like all the other Jedi, she’d known long before she’d see the records, felt the slaughter of thousands of Jedi across the galaxy and the billions of citizens who died during the Sacking of Coruscant.  And she’d cried, alone and unseen devastated by the wanton slaughter, the first time Luke could remember a memory of her doing so, and with her the rest of the galaxy.  Luke wanted to cry with her, to hold the small child and comfort her but he couldn’t… it was only what had gone before.

Faced with no other choice, as thousands of Jedi had been slain—nearly whipping the order out--the Republic’s troops decimated, and the capital under siege, what was left of the Senate on Alderaan was forced to agree to the Treaty of Coruscant.

The treaty mandated that all remaining Jedi (of which there were perhaps a few hundred left alive out of more than ten thousand most of which were younglings) and Republic forces stand down from combat and withdraw into Republic space. It also demanded that the Republic recognize the Empire as the legitimate ruler of half the galaxy, and that the Republic cede to the Empire a number of worlds that had not been conquered by Imperial forces…giving the Empire a decisive victory.

The Empire—now owning half the galaxy to Luke’s horror--retreated from what was left of Republic space and the Cold War began. The Republic fell into a massive economic depression that would last at least a decade. Though both Empire and Republic never really stopped fighting, waging battle against each other with a series of proxy wars.

The surviving Jedi, scattered and weakened, retreated, searching through the Force for a new place to call home. That home came in the form of the Jedi’s birthplace, rediscovered by the Jedi Satele Shan by the will of the Force—Tython. It was to there that the Order retreated seeking to reconnect to their roots and fleeing the persecution of the Republic who blamed the Order for its defeat at the hands of the Sith.

The Order reconstructed the main Temple that had once stood on Tython, rebuilding a Council from those left, including Satele Shan, who was made the youngest Grand Master in history at only 46. The restriction on the age of acceptance for Initiates (no older than three years) was disbanded and the Order began accepting any Force-sensitives  they could find as students in an effort to replenish their numbers.

The Order’s  youngling however were dispersed throughout Republic controlled space on constantly moving Jedi Praxeum ships, only coming to Tython when they were ready to become Padawans, for fear that the Empire would not hold to the Treaty and would destroy the Order altogether. 

The girl was no exception, though unlike her peers she was not sent to a ship with any she had studied with previously for while the Order approved of her conscious efforts of nonattachment they found that those around her still formed attachments to her, weak though they were. So she was sent to the praxeum ship, _Tranquility_ where she would spend the rest of her days as an Initiate and the Order’s fear that the Empire would continue to hunt down Jedi proved well founded. Several of the praxeum ships were attacked and captured, the Jedi on board slain and the younglings given to the Sith, though of course the Empire was careful to ensure deniability of the attacks. But as the Force would have it _Tranquility_ was never among the Empire’s captured prizes.

While there the girl started to truly come into control of her Force Powers, showing profound aptitude not just in combat training at which she excelled, displaying an uncanny knack for seeming to know what her opponent would do next—even when they changed tactics at the last second--but at areas of study not considered useful in combat. Including the comprehension of any language she encountered via the Force with little effort and making herself understood in the same manner and a shocking ability with telekinesis. She even showed some propensity with healing through the Force and was at least average in the area of telepathy, a skill that again the Order found mysteriously alarming despite the fact telepathy in varying degrees was one of the most basic of Jedi skills. It came as no surprise to Luke that the girl was immediately discouraged from using it without dire need.  It seemed to be the Old Order’s response to anything that frightened them. Forbid it—justifiable or not.

 Outside of her Force ability the girl displayed a remarkable knack for intuitive comprehension of technology, even that which she had never seen or used, picking up even the most difficult to understand with surprising rapidity. This led to the Jedi recommending her for yet another area of tutoring--advanced technical training. Though she was never spectacular with repairing broken technology or exceedingly skilled in slicing she rarely had issue with managing at least above average and the skill played a part in the Order’s decision to assign her to the Jedi Starfighter Corps to be trained as a fighter pilot.

It was more training than most Jedi received in their entire time as mere Initiates. But then she had no friends, no attachments, no one with which to share her leisure time and the training filled the hours that would have been otherwise lonely and empty. The girl dedicated herself to her training with a vengeance for that purpose and the knowledge that the Order was in desperate need of devoted Jedi, determined to be a credit to the Order. However, despite all her accomplishments the Order held her back from the Initiate trials until she was 20—far beyond the usually maximum of 13—keeping her under their ever watchful eye until they were certain any vestigial lack of control over forming attachments was well and truly dead.

By the time she was allowed to take the trails and sent to Tython, she had become one of the best lightsaber duelist in the Order. Matching their greatest Masters before she had even been taken as a Padawan.  And even her self- imposed emotional distance and the absence of anyone she truly felt was a friend did not dim the gentle and empathetic core of her, buried though it was.

The girl’s—now a young woman--arrival on Tython (Tython! Birth place of the Jedi! Luke couldn’t  help the sense of giddy joy he felt to see it as though he were there. It was as breathtakingly beautiful in all its untamed majesty—with its tall Ak trees, mountains, abundant and varied wildlife and cliffs with waterfalls tumbling from them--to him as it was to her), routine as it was, could not be more fortuitous or fateful.  But their shared awe was short lived.

No sooner had she disembarked the shuttle that had brought her there and begun to be introduced to the Jedi sent to collect her and bring her back to the Temple from the landing point at the Master’s Retreat in the Tythonian Gnarls, Jedi Derrin Weller, than a sudden attack by Tython’s native but primitive and hostile species—massive hammerheaded brutes called Fleshraiders and with good reason, they were cannibals--was struck on the Padawan training grounds. They were armed with blasters and vibroswords and using them with great efficiency. A feat that should have been beyond their capability given their primitive nature.

Jedi Weller called for every able bodied fully fledged Jedi to rally to the training grounds to rescue the Padawans…including, to her surprise, the young woman herself due to her incredible strength with the Force and her already extensive training for combat because of the severe dirth of available help….and armed with nothing more than a electroblade practice saber not designed for lethal combat, only painful shocks, while he stayed behind to coordinate efforts.

Surprised and a little concerned she was not ready for such a task but always the obedient servant of the Order and completely unwilling to leave the defenseless to their fates, she plucked up her resolve, denied her fear and followed orders, heading for the training grounds (to which she was closer than anyone available) to assist.  Flung head first and untried into the fray.

Luke desperately wanted to yell at Jedi Weller. To send an untried student, no matter how good she was, and she was astonishingly good, against an entire battalion of enemies, alone, with what amounted to a stun stick was insanity. Even if circumstance was dire and the student had long ago surpassed the qualifications to be a Padawan. She’d still never seen battle.

But to his great surprise and admiration, she managed to push back the Fleshraiders from the training grounds, herding the endangered, and in many cases captured, Padawans  to safety and getting those in need of medical care evacuated to a medcenter but even that was not enough. The Fleshraiders kept coming and though the rest of the available Jedi were arriving to help they were vastly outnumbered. It was discovered however that the Fleshraiders were using an old tunnel through the Gnarls to get into the valley where the training grounds were. Master Weller, himself injured and evacuated to a medcenter, sent the young woman there in a desperate bid to stymie the flow of Fleshraiders into the valley while the arriving reinforcements kept the Fleshraiders from breeching the training grounds and making it to the Temple itself.

She went despite her doubts that she was up to the task because there was no one else, it _had_ to be her, and found the tunnel, fighting through the Fleshraiders between the Master’s Retreat and the tunnel then again through the reinforcements coming through it intending to figure out a way to collapse the tunnel in on itself so that it was no longer any use to the Fleshraiders. But once she—battered and bruised as she was--had pushed back the contingent of Fleshraider reinforcements coming through the tunnel she sensed someone injured inside. Going to aid them, she came upon a seriously injured Padawan and another that appeared to be a Jedi… who had been the one to injure the Padawan and was flanked by a group of Fleshraider guards.  Appalled and unwilling to allow the Jedi to harm the Padawan further the young woman fearlessly stepped in.

The Jedi revealed himself to be the person commanding the Fleshraiders to attack the rest of the Jedi, declaring the Order weak and in need of cleansing, so that a new, stronger Order could be established. She asked the Jedi to surrender and stop his madness but to no avail...the Jedi was set on his plan and intent on killing both the injured Padawan and her. Especially her since he saw her as eminently dangerous.

He and his Fleshraider minions attacked her en mass forcing her to fight still armed with only an electroblade practice saber against a fully-fledged Jedi Knight wielding a lightsaber and the Fleshraiders. Despite the odds, the woman fought and killed the Jedi and his minions saving not only herself but the injured Padawan as well, who was astounded by the feat, much to her embarrassment. 

Moments later Jedi Master Orgus Din—a haggard faced but kind eyed man with a head of short-cropped silver streaked brown hair and a dry, sly wit--arrived having finally broken through the last wave of Fleshraiders in the valley. When he saw what had happened he was deeply impressed by the young woman’s actions which the injured Padawan was more than enthusiastic about relaying to him, again to her embarrassment. She had grown used to the lack of attention her solitude caused and found the attention uncomfortable. It did not help that she was in a state of emotional shock she hadn’t yet acknowledged, couldn’t right then. She’d never killed anyone before that day, never even deliberately injured them and yet now dozens of bodies lay in her wake in only hours, felled by nothing more than a practice saber.  She hated it.

Master Orgus determined that the Jedi who had attacked them had not been from the Order but was instead a Dark Jedi and that it was unlikely that he was working alone given the scale of the attack. He collapsed the tunnel himself with the Force and took charge of getting the injured Padawan safely to a medcenter since while the flow of Fleshraiders into the valley had been cut off, those already there were still being dealt with. The young woman, he ordered to carry a report of the current state of matters to the Jedi Council, trusting that if she was skilled enough to take down a Dark Jedi alone she was more than qualified to make it to the Temple without being killed by the Fleshraiders that remained.

She  arrived at the Temple—a majestically beautiful and elegant thing--fending off straggling Fleshraiders when needed to find that at least some news had already preceded her. Namely, her actions on the training field since many of the rescued but not seriously injured Padawans had been evacuated to the temple. She headed for the Council Chamber uncomfortably aware of the awed whispers around her and deeply bothered that her ability to kill was strong enough that she had done it with something meant only to deliver shocks, not just once in the tunnel but many times on the training grounds, a fact that disturbed her buried gentle nature.

Sensing the Initiate’s disturbance Grand Master Satele Shan intercepted the young woman by way of sending one of the uninjured rescued Padawans with a message to meet her in her meditation chamber before reporting to the Council.

Acutely aware of her battered, dirty, sweaty and bruised appearance and convinced out of habit that she had done something wrong unknowingly—and out of battle the true horror of having killed settling in--she obeyed the summons with great trepidation. But instead, when she arrived she found herself being praised (again uncomfortably) for her heroics on the training grounds and reminded only that her feelings betrayed her, to remember there was no emotion, there is peace before being bustled back out to report to the Council directly.

Luke got the distinct impression that the entire thing had been a ploy by the Grand Master to get a one-on-one look at the woman in private…and garnering the personal interest of the Grand Master of the Jedi was…intimidating to the young woman. Though he agreed she had earned the praise by far, Luke was disappointed that the Grand Master had spared so few words for the obviously and justifiably rattled youth.

The young woman made her report to the Council, a painfully small one only half the size it should have been, after being quite proudly introduced by the freshly returned Master Orgus—who was himself a member of the Council. The Council, with the young woman’s information—who also admitted that she felt a darkness emerging on Tython--agreed that whomever the Dark Jedi had been working with had to be found and that the Fleshraiders they were using were not quite as primitive as the Council had previously thought.

The Fleshraiders had been pushed back, but they still lurked beyond the edges of the Temple grounds, barely held at bay and waiting to strike again. Master Orgus, who had finally arrived back at the Temple and was a member of the Council himself, agreed and due to the lack of available Jedi for the job, volunteered to do it himself…with the help of his new Padawan…the young woman who he noted was stronger in the Force than he’d ever seen.

The announcement stunned the entire Council and the young woman. The Council questioned the sudden revelation given that Master Orgus had not taken a Padawan since his last one had been slain in the Sacking of Coruscant but Master Orgus would not take ‘no’….or even the suggestion of a doubt…for an answer. He’d sealed the deal by promptly shooing the speechless young woman, now finally a Padawan, to go get her bruises and cuts seen to while the Council finished its discussion then meet him in his chambers where she’d find supplies waiting for her. The young woman, deeply touched and honored by the gesture went, still stunned. The Council had had little choice but to agree to Master Orgus’s ‘request’ though there was no animosity over it.

 Luke wanted so badly to laugh and congratulate the man on a job well done for he got the sense that Master Orgus was a wise Jedi and understood what Luke had already. What the young woman needed was not more shoulder hovering supervision, it was to spread her wings and find out what she was truly capable of under the guidance of a Master who understood those capabilities and would encourage them…not hinder them.

But their conversation in Master Orgus’s chambers gave him both a sense of hope and the idea that Master Orgus saw far more than he was letting on.

_“Blast those Council Meetings. I’d die of old age before my collegues ran out of things to say,” Master Orgus had finally come in grousing._

_“I’d rather do something about problems than discuss them all day,” the young woman replied._

_“Glad to hear it. Still, there are times when talking is exactly what is needed. I just prefer to get things done. At any rate, are you ready to go put your credits where your mouth is?”_

_“For that I’d need credits first.”_

_Her quip made Orgus laugh. “We’ll get along just fine.”_

_The young woman had smiled and it was a bright one, open and guileless. “Yes Master I’m ready but may I ask a question first?”_

_“Go ahead. Given the situation this may be the only time to ask it.”_

_“I get the impression that you haven’t had a Padawan in years. I’m deeply honored Master but why decide to train **me**?” she’d asked, mystified by his choice. Her voice was always soothingly soft spoken and polite but direct._

_“You’re a humble one. That’s good but don’t get too excited, there’s a lot of hard work ahead of you,” Orgus had chuckled and then grown serious. “As Jedi you learn to trust your instincts. When I met you in that cave, my instincts told me I was meant to train you. I don’t know why or for what purpose but the Force brought us together for a reason.” He sighed, frowning slightly. “This situation has come to you fast and I apologize that there isn’t more time for you to adjust. You’re braving dangers many Jedi never face. But don’t let it make you doubt yourself. You’re capable of more than you think and stronger too. Beware fear, anger and hate but trust your instincts and your feelings. Follow them where they lead and you’ll be fine.”_

_The advice had understandably shocked her. “But I have always been told not to. To trust my instincts, yes, but not my feelings.”_

_Her words made Orgus frown deeply. “That…that’s the worst advice I’ve ever heard. I can’t imagine why they would tell you that and you forget it. If you can’t trust your feelings…what can you trust? Anyway, are we going to get out of here and get to work or stand here and talk all day? Let’s go.”_

_The young woman had smiled again then, surprised by his advice but for perhaps for the first time in her life…hopeful. “Right behind you Master.”_

It made Luke hopeful too that maybe she’d finally found someone who saw her for herself and wouldn’t push her away in the name of non-attachment. Extreme non-attachment. That maybe she’d not only found a Master but a friend and support. But he didn’t miss Master Orgus’ concern and it made him wonder what he knew that he wasn’t revealing to the young woman.

However, circumstance kept them apart more often than not. While Master Orgus went searching for a lead on whoever the Dark Jedi was serving he sent the young woman, to whom he always referred to as Padawan until it became more of an affectionate nickname than a title—to seek out the Matriach of a illegal settlement of  Twi’lek pilgrims who had petitioned the Senate for permission to settle on Tython after it was rediscovered but been denied. Exiled from their homeworld because their old religious beliefs conflicted with the new they were desperate for a new home and they had settled on Tython anyway. However, the Senate demanded the Jedi deny the Twi’lek’s any sort of aid and the Council—much to Orgus’s disappointment and when she found out about it, the young woman’s appall—had bowed to political pressure and done it. Leaving the settlers, however illegal they might have been, to fend for themselves. They had been fighting off Fleshraiders for months prior to their uprising against the Jedi and the Council had firmly stood by its no-aid agreement with the Senate, ignoring any request for help from the Twi’leks. Needless to say they were not very fond of the Jedi as a result.

Luke was as appalled as the young woman was. The Jedi served the Republic—by whatever name—not the government. He had found that people had an alarming tendency not to realize the difference. And to leave an entire settlement to the mercy of those cannibals and do nothing while they were killed? It infuriated Luke. That was not the Jedi way. The Old Order in his Father’s time had made the same mistake of bowing to politics and it had destroyed them.

But Orgus hoped that the young woman could earn the Matriach’s trust and learn all the Twi’leks knew about the Fleshraiders. That she could show them what a Jedi really was.

She did. Perilously and with great patience and compassion, through one trial set before her after another to prove that she really was there to help them and through many acts of kindness that no one asked of her at all.Often deviating to assist those that were not in any way a part of her objective to find out more about the Fleshraiders simply because they needed help and she’d been drawn to them by the Force, felt their pain and acted. She’d obeyed her Master and followed her feelings.

But she was wildly alarmed when word of her actions spread, through the Twi’lek Village and the Jedi Temple, resulting in both Twi’lek and Jedi alike staring at her in awe anytime she was near, whispering in amazement. And in one alarming case, praying for Jedi aid and firmly believing it had brought her to them as though Jedi were Gods to be called upon at times of great need, no matter how much she insisted that was not how it worked.

Her hard won information paid off however when it led to her pursuing a lead on a Fleshraider base where they were storing all their munitions. The Twi’leks wanted her to sabotage the base and kill all the Fleshraiders…instead, she infiltrated and disabled the base then stole their munitions to take back to the Twi’leks so they would be able to defend themselves. In the process she discovered a—to Luke—ancient astromech droid in the service of the Order, called T7-01, that had been programmed to do double duty as a recon agent who the Fleshraiders had captured and kept.

The crafty astromech had pretended deactivation and secretly recorded everything he saw—including the Master of the Dark Jedi she had slain who was the real mastermind behind the Fleshraider attacks and his ultimate goal—complete annihilation of the Order--but was unable to take the information back to the Jedi due to the restraining bolt they had placed on him. She quickly remedied the situation—expressing Luke’s shared opinion of never understanding the point of the devices in the first place--and took both the animated little droid that reminded Luke a great deal of R2 and the weapons back to the Twi’lek village.

Back at the village she found Master Orgus had come to discover if she had had better luck than he had. He was happily surprised that she had and commended her for her efforts with the Twi’leks, a feat which had gained them the Twi’leks’ trust, when no other Jedi had been able…or willing to.  They were joyously grateful for the munitions she had brought them and Orgus was proudly pleased with her choice to turn the Fleshraiders’ advantage against them. When Orgus had seen T7’s recording he had immediately and with very weakly veiled distress recognized the Master of the Dark Jedi even as word reached them that the Fleshraiders had taken control of the Tythonian Mountains, effectively fencing in the Jedi Temple and the Twi’lek village from all sides and that they were massing in the ruins of the former Dark Jedi ruins of Kaleth—left by the first Dark Jedi in the wake of the Force Wars—a place possessed of powers even the Jedi didn’t fully understand—looking for something at one of the ruin’s ancient shrines.

Orgus immediately sent the young woman to stop the Fleshraiders at Kaleth and find out what they were looking for while he took T7 to report to the Council and gather reinforcements to follow after her.

Throughout it all, as she came out of her--both self and not so self-imposed--shell of solitude, her friendship with her Master deepening despite their often being separated and she developed a deep affection for him and he for her until they were as close as a Father and daughter might have been, perhaps more for they seemed to have forged a deep connection through the Force, deeper than just Master and Padawan. Though she remained a serious woman she developed a wit as sharp and dry as her Master’s though she expressed it so little to anyone but him that when she did it left the hearer in shock she’d made a joke. And her power in the Force grew, in leaps and bounds, forced to by necessity as she battled impossible odds. As often as not discovering how to do something with the Force out of sheer need—some of which Luke didn’t even know what were but very much wanted to learn--much as Luke had been forced to as the only Jedi left--as by instruction.

And Luke soon discovered—she was going to need her growing powers.

Battling through a small army of twenty thousand year old, malfunctioning but still supremely dangerous, Tythonian War Droids and the invading Fleshraiders in the ruins of Kaleth she fought her way—single handedly and still armed with an electroblade practice blade only marginally better than her first one---through a small army to reach the shrine deep within the ruins, surprised by the Fleshraiders sudden adeptness with vibroswords and seemingly far more skilled at combat than they had any right to be only to discover a group of Fleshraiders unlike any others she’d faced.

And when one had spoken—something no one had thought them capable of—and called her Jeedai—which disturbingly reminded Luke of the Yuuzhan Vong mispronunciation of the word--on top of it, she’d been stunned. When it had Force Blasted her halfway across the meadow housing the shrine and then set the rest of the group on her, all of which could use the Force and had obviously been trained--she’d been completely dumb-founded.

The Fleshraiders weren’t just sentient. They weren’t just using blasters and vibroswords. Some of them were powerful Force-Users and someone was training them. The army the Master of the Dark Jedi was building to destroy the Jedi Order was suddenly a lot more dangerous.

They were not however, inclined to talk about things peacefully despite her overtures. Forced to fight or die, she’d faced down what amounted to five skilled Jedi at once….and won. It was only after she had defeated them and was attempting to catch her breath and regain her senses after the mind reeling revelation to say nothing of been pummeled by five strong force-users that her reinforcements arrived by way of  the Torgruta Master Bela Kiwiks whom Luke recognized as part of the Council and her 18 year old red haired Padawan, Kira Carsen, who had also been in attendance.

The young woman had quickly revealed what had happened to Master Kiwik’s distress but not before her Padawan’s mouth got the better of her, snarkily noting that the young woman had made quick work of the Fleshraider Force-users and asking if she ever left survivors. To which the young woman had replied that she always tried and that she hadn’t come there hoping to kill anyone. Kira had immediately apologized, admitting that her mouth had a tendency to get ahead of her brain. She reminded Luke heart achingly of Mara and it wasn’t hard to envision his deceased beloved having been the same way at that age if she hadn’t been the brainwashed pawn of Palpatine at the time.

Master Kiwiks  and Kira had then helped the young woman search the Fleshraiders for whatever they had been looking for in the ruins only to discover them in possession of an ancient holocron.  A fact that had disturbed them further. Master Kiwiks expressed the opinion that, despite the recording from T7 that the holocron was where the Fleshraiders had learned to use the Force. A fact the young woman—and Luke—had politely disagreed with. It might have aided their learning but it wasn’t their main source of knowledge and it  certainly wasn’t who was sending them to attack the Jedi.

But Master Kiwiks had simply said that the Council would determine that and lamented that she and Kira could not stay to help for longer. The Grand Master was sending them to Coruscant in the belief that the rising darkness the Council and the young woman had been feeling was coming from there.  

So she tasked the young woman—why hadn’t Luke gotten her name yet it was as though no one ever said it  and he really wanted to know the name of the woman whose horribly broken mind he was in—with setting up security cams throughout the ruins to watch for the return of anymore Force using Fleshraiders and sent her back to the Twi’lek village to report to Master Orgus with the promise to report what had happened to the Council before she departed. Ignoring the young woman’s sound and wise observations about the unlikelihood of the holocron being the source of their knowledge and drive—much to Luke’s outrage.

However, when she returned to the Twi’lek village it was to find her Master and T7 in complete agreement with her and carrying more shocking and foreboding news. The recording T7 had made had revealed exactly who the Master of the Dark Jedi was. Master Orgus’s former Padawan believed to have been killed during the slaughter of the Jedi at the Temple on Coruscant ten years prior, a Natoulan named Bengel Morr who according to Master Orgus had been the gentlest being he’d ever known as well as very gifted in the Force. Master Orgus hadn’t been able to understand why Bengel had apparently willfully disappeared or how he hadn’t known he was still alive—a fact he was guilt ridden over as well as deeply grieved by the knowledge that Bengel had turned to the darkside much less to return with a desire to destroy the Order. He knew his former Padawan had to be stopped, quickly.

Luke knew his pain well. He’d been helpless to stop Gantoris from falling to the dark influence of Exar Kun on Yavin IV--a fate that had killed the Jedi Apprentice when he’d tried to use darkside powers far too powerful for him and burnt himself to a pile of ash. He’d been helpless to stop Kyp Durron from falling to the same influence—Exar Kun playing on the then teenage boy’s tragic childhood loss of his entire family at the hands of the Empire and his subsequent enslavement  in the spice mines of Kessel—to drive the young man to commit horrible, unthinkable acts to increase the dark lord’s power under the guise of revenge...including the annihilation of the entire Carida star system….and all life within it with the confiscated Imperial superweapon the Suncrusher. By the Force, Luke and Han had been able to free the boy of Exar Kun’s influence and turn him back to the light…but it hadn’t been easy. And Luke still bore the guilt of not having been able to stop it from happening.

On the heels of the tragic revelation of the Master of the Dark Jedi’s identity, the young woman and Master Orgus learned that Twi’lek scouts had discovered a hidden Fleshraider command base in the mountains, protected by an energy shield. The generator for which was hidden on the other side of the mountain range in a well-guarded cave network. Master Orgus reasoned that the command base was probably the location from which all the other attacks were being coordinated and was likely where Bengel Morr would be found. He sent the young woman despite her ardent plea to go with him to knock out the generator so he could go to the base itself to confront—and he hoped, persuade—his old Padwan to come back to the light and put an end to the attacks. The young woman had protested again confessing that she had a bad feeling about him going alone but he insisted and she dutifully obeyed him.

Luke understood her Master’s reasons. Bengel had been his student. He had to do this himself.

So accompanied by T7 the young woman headed for the cave network and the generator, once again battling her way with T7 at her side—who proved to be a formidable combat partner since he had been modified to carry and use a blaster of his own--through the well-guarded location to reach the generator. But shutting the shield generator down triggered an automatic alarm system and alerted Bengel Morr himself. Communicating via the holocom installed near the deactivated generator it was very apparent he was very unhappy with the young woman for steadily decimating his forces and killing his apprentice. He vowed to destroy every Jedi on Tython so that he could build a new, stronger, Order on the bones of their dead corpses because they were too weak to do anything to stop the Sith Empire’s advances, too weak to stop the slaughter at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. His, he vowed would destroy the Sith once and for all.

The young woman tried to reason with him, telling him his old Master was looking for him, begging the fallen Jedi to give up his anger and let them help him. But he had flatly refused and promised that Master Orgus wouldn’t find him, he would find Master Orgus.

Worried for her Master, she had immediately attempted to reach him via portal holocom but to no avail which only served to alarm her further so without delay she had fled back to the Twi’lek village in the hopes of finding him there. But instead she had arrived to no Master and the village under attack by a force of Fleshraiders who were not only attacking Twi’leks with blasters and vibroblades but dropping toxic mines on them and their crops. Even if the Twi;leks survived the assault, without their crops they’d starve to death in a matter of weeks.

So the young woman had taken charge of the situation, ordering everyone still capable of ambulating to gather the injured and fall back as she rushed to rout the Fleshraiders and disable the mines. The battle very nearly killed her even with the Force and breath control as her ally. Fighting while she was being steadily poisoned by the mines she was trying to reach, it was all she could do to make it. But to Luke’s triumphant pride, make it she did. Driving the Fleshraiders out and destroying all of the mines. Not one of the Twi’lek villagers died in the attack and as she sat recovering from her own part of the ordeal her Master had finally returned her call, apologizing for not having done so sooner because he’d been in the middle of putting the Fleshraider command base out of commission for good and discovering the location of several hidden Fleshraider camps in the process.

She had quickly relayed the news of her conversation with Bengel Morr and Master Orgus decided that she would head for the newly discovered camp nearest her, farther into the ruins of Kaleth than she had gone previously, while the rest of the meager Jedi forces spread out to take the other camps at the same time and Master Orgus went after Bengel himself. The young woman had again expressed her feeling that him going alone was a bad idea—more now than ever since it was obvious Bengel had it out for him--and while he had been deeply touched by her concern for his safety he had still insisted that they needed her fighting the Fleshraiders.

Luke got the distinct sense that her Master wasn’t just refusing her assistance out of a stubborn refusal to admit he might need help…he was doing it out of deep attachment to his Padawan. He was afraid that if she went with him Bengel Morr would use that attachment to hurt him…by killing her.

The young woman had relented despite her fears for her Master’s safety and gone to do as he asked, taking the loyal T7 with her. Assault the camp in the upper ruins of Kaleth…alone… because their forces were so thin.

Luke began to wonder—with some alarm—if Master Orgus kept sending his Padawan out without reinforcements because he knew that in the future she would be alone  with only herself between her and her enemies and that he was preparing her for such a dismal fate. The thought was deeply disturbing.

The young woman made it to the camp, buried deep in mountain caves with resonated heavily with the darkside, and she and T7 fought their way through only to find that a Selkath Jedi named Laotah had been drawn there by the surveillance cams she had previously installed in the ruins and gone in alone to investigate the Fleshraiders...all of which were Force-users. In doing so, he’d been overwhelmed and gravely injured—was dying in fact. He ordered the young woman to retreat and leave him but she had vehemently refused to do so. She tried desperately to save him but it was too late, he died in her arms telling her that the Fleshraiders had taken his lightsaber and to flee before they killed her too. He spent his last breath in sadness as she told him that she had no choice—there was no one else coming, she had to face them.

Saddened by the Jedi’s death—a foolish death by Luke’s way of thinking, the Selkath should have notified someone before he went in there by himself and requested backup— and guilt ridden that she’d arrived too late to save him, she pressed on…because there was no one else to do the job…only her.

Luke found himself terribly proud of her bravery and her stalwart refusal to give up even in the face of such overwhelming odds.

She faced the Force-using Fleshraiders, vowing that the Jedi’s death would not be in vain, battling with T7 against wave after wave of them—fighting and winning against the Fleshraider who had taken Jedi Laotah’s lightsaber—which she reclaimed in the process though it was damaged beyond repair in the fight-- until finally, she broke through the other side of the cave network…and there were no more. She’d done it, she was bruised and bloodied but she’d done it.

The young woman immediately commed her Master to notify him of their victory and the Jedi Laotah’s death. Master Orgus was pleased with her success—which he’d never doubted—and saddened by Loatah’s death but they had more pressing matters now that the camp was out of commission. They’d received a distress signal from the Twi’lek village, the Twi’leks had spotted Bengel Morr in the village and the Jedi Forces were spread too thin dealing with the other camps to render any assistance. It was up to Master and Padawan to deal with the leader of the Fleshraiders and finally put an end to all this. He ordered her to meet him there.

Hastening with all speed back to the village she arrived with her danger sense on high alert but the Twi’lek villagers bewilderingly going about their business as though nothing was wrong so she cautiously entered the Matriarch’s bunker to meet up with Master Orgus and find out what was going on.

However, she discovered that Master Orgus was not there and the Matriarch insisted that they had sent no distress call, that things had been quiet since she had left. Immediately recognizing that she and Master Orgus had been tricked but not sure by whom she asked the Matriarch if she’d seen Master Orgus at all and tasked T7 with scanning for any sign of him. The Matriarch claimed she had not and T7 reported that he could not detect Master Orgus nor was he answering his holocom. The Matriarch calmly suggested that she was sure it was just a misunderstanding and that Master Orgus would turn up, encouraging the young woman to rest since she must have been exhausted. She was but she also sensed deception from the Matriarch and her danger sense slammed into over drive. Realizing she and Master Orgus had been betrayed she turned to flee only to be shot dead on with a powerful tranquilizer dart. The young woman fought it but it was too large a dose for even her to resist and she succumbed to unconsciousness even as a confused T7 wailed as he was struck down by an ion blast, deactivating him. 

She came to, disarmed and laid out on a bunk with a Twi’lek scout leveling a blaster set to full power at her face  and two more pointed at her from either side and the Matriarch demanding he stop it. The scout demanded the Matriarch step aside saying that handing over her Master hadn’t been enough, that she had to die as well. Gathering her wits, hurt by the Twi’leks’ betrayal and furious at what they’d done, she knocked the blaster aside and sat up.  While the scout scrambled to reclaim his fallen blaster the young woman decried their actions, demanding in a hurt tone to know how they could have lied to her face and betrayed her and Master Orgus.

The Matriarch, a young Twi’lek who had only been the leader of her people for a short while in the wake of her mother’s death, hastened to answer, desperate to be understood and deeply guilt ridden. She confessed she’d had no choice, that there were too many Fleshraiders and not enough Jedi. The scout, having reclaimed his blaster, added that Bengel Moor had come to him and had promised to end the Fleshraider attacks if they handed over Master Orgus and killed her.  But the Matriarch said she had refused. She gave him Master Orgus but she wouldn’t kill the young woman, instead she would keep her there, safe but unable to interfere and giving her people a Jedi to protect them. The scout broke in saying that if they did not do as they had been told, Bengel Morr would kill them all.

Aghast, hurt, still furious and worried for her Master the young woman pointed out that Bengel Morr was insane, too emotionally broken by what had happened on Coruscant to see clearly and driven completely by the darkside and  was only using them, that it didn’t matter if they obeyed him or not…when he was done using them he’d kill them anyway.

The scout told her not to resist that it would only make things harder and drew his blaster again along with his two men, still set on killing her. Realizing that she was not getting through to them because they were too desperate and knowing that if she didn’t end this quickly and get out of there her Master would be killed by Bengel she gave up arguing and used the Force. She mind tricked all three scouts at once—an impressive feat-- into going in peace, relinquishing their blasters and going home. The Matriarch broke down in tears saying that it wasn’t supposed to be like this, that she had meant to save her, to save them all.  The young woman, still hurt by the Matriarch’s—who she had considered a friend—betrayal railed that she’d done it by betraying them and giving her Master to the enemy to be killed.

The Matriarch, frantic to make amends, declared that there was still a chance to save the young woman’s Master confessing that Bengel Morr had said he was taking Master Orgus to some place called the Forge. The young woman recognized the place instantly—the place where the first Jedi had gone to construct their lightsabers—but she had no idea where on Tython it was located.

The Matriarch encouraged her to reactive T7 and see if he knew where the Forge was then begged the young woman to understand and forgive her, that she hadn’t known what else to do. Still hurt but wise beyond her years the young woman relented and let go of her anger at the young frightened leader and forgave her. She didn’t condone what she had done but she did understand it. The Matriarch burst into tears again and begged to know what she might do to make up for the horrible thing she’d done. The young woman advised her learn from this and to dedicate herself to goodness and spend her life helping others. The Matriarch readily agreed and promised fiercely that she would do as the young woman advised and wouldn’t waste this second chance. Then she left tell her people that the danger had passed, leaving the young woman to reactivate T7 and go find her Master before it was too late.

Luke found himself silently routing for and praising the young woman for her foresight and wisdom. She was indeed a Jedi, in the truest sense of the word. But too, he felt her betrayal, pain and fear as deeply as she did and he mourned that she should have to suffer it.

The young woman reactivated T7—who was greatly distressed that they’d been betrayed and with utter innocence and naivety unable to grasp why they would do such a thing for any reason—and asked if he knew where the Forge was. T7 admitted he did not but that he knew who would—the archive droid at the Jedi Temple who could also relay what had happened. The young woman agreed and together they contacted the droid via holo only to hit a snag when the droid refused them because the area was considered very dangerous. The young woman however would not be denied and demanded the droid tell her anyway because it was an emergency, telling him what had happened and ordering him to tell the Council. The droid immediately decided to comply and gave her the coordinates she needed, promising to relay what had happened to the Council but confessing that he doubted they would be able to aid her as all the Jedi including the Council were still entrenched assaulting the Fleshraider camps.

It was, once again, up to the young woman alone. Luke wished that this was more than a memory, that he was there beside her—to go with her.

Fearful but brave and determined not to fail, she and T7 raced for the Forge, which was on the other side of the mountains—which were overrun with a massive Fleshraider army composed of both those wielding vibroswords and blasters and those wielding the Force. And they had figured out how to reprogram the Tythonian War Droids to fight for them. Undaunted the young woman and T7 battled their way through the army—slaying the army’s commander in the process and sending the army scattering in disorganized confusion without him--and the war droids to reach the ruins in which the Forge lay.

There they arrived just in time to find Bengel Morr, flanked by three force using Fleshraider adepts as he telekinetically picked up and brutally flung Master Orgus, already beaten to within an inch of his life, against the high steps of the Forge with such force that the man tumbled helplessly down them to crumble into unconsciousness at the foot of the stairs. The young woman rushed to aid her Master even as Bengel Morr, confident and unthreatened by her presence, turned to face her calmly noting that he had sensed her coming, her fear had betrayed her and that she was weak like Orgus and that she would fall with him.

The young woman responded that Bengel was wrong and pleaded with him not to do this. But Bengel had only said that the weak would be sacrificed to the Forge to make it stronger—to corrupt it to the darkside—and the Jedi Order reborn from their ashes. Then he moved to slay Master Orgus. The young woman had declared that she couldn’t let him do that and attacked, battling against his three powerful minions and Bengel Morr who was astounding strong to save her Master and the Jedi Order from the mad Dark Jedi. She killed his minions and battled Bengel Morr to his knees but did not kill him. 

The Dark misguided and broken Jedi couldn’t understand why the Force had led him to defeat and gazing up at her in awe confessing that she was the strongest Jedi he’d ever met. Convinced that the Force had led him to the true leader of his new order he said that she could redeem the order and destroy the Empire and the Sith, that now he understood. She was the weapon he had come to forge not himself. That it was her destiny.

Appalled by the idea, she’d asked why he thought she was destined to defeat the Empire. He’d declared that he was certain of it that the Force had shown him her destiny and asked that she let him go so that he could prepare the galaxy for her ascendance. The young woman was not tempted even a little and refused Bengel’s offer but she was desperate to make him see the light and Luke felt her reach out to him, unconsciously through the Force in her desperation, simultaneously pleading with him again to give up his quest and return to the lightside of the Force, to return with her and Master Orgus to the Temple to be healed.

Even as she reached out to Bengel through the Force Luke felt something happening he didn’t understand. As she spoke, her conviction, her strength and her compassion for the Dark Jedi who had been broken by the slaughter of the Jedi on Coruscant flowed out of her….and into Bengel Morr, filling all the broken places inside him with light and hope. It was inverse Dun Moch but….more.

Bengel suddenly turned from Dark to Light and submitted himself to her and the Order for judgment horrified by what he’d done. Relieved and entirely unaware of what she’d done, the young woman, accepted his surrender but fearing that it could be a trick, she kindly told him that now he could rest and find peace… and knocked him out cold with a hard punch.

Luke wasn’t surprised by the knock out and with some amusement he had to admit that it was an efficient alternative when you didn’t have a pair of binders handy and were unaware that your former. enemy had no intention of betraying you. But more, he was dumfounded and amazed at the young woman’s innate skill with the Force. He was deeply impressed by her and her strength of will and character that through all of this had kept her compassionate and empathetic to those around her. He fervently wanted to understand what it was she had done with Bengel Moor and learn it for himself and he wanted to cheer loudly, congratulate her himself for her accomplishment and success.

The young woman wasted no time in reviving her Master, who noted wryly that he must have her to thank for being alive and commended her on her defeat and capture of Bengel Morr, noting that she’d faced a challenge greater than any Trial of Knighthood he could have assigned, saying that there was nothing more he could teach her, that all that was left was for her to enter the Forge and construct her own lightsaber. He produced a pouch that he had brought with him, confessing that he had been led by the Force long ago to collect the components for a lightsaber but not to construct it. He’d kept it and been led again by the Force to bring the components with him to face Bengel Morr and now he understood why. He presented the young woman with the pouch and tasked her with constructing her lightsaber while he took the unconscious Bengel back to the Jedi Temple. He asked that when she was done she return to the Temple and meet with him in the Council chambers.

Left alone and exhausted and no little shocked by her Master’s sudden confession that he couldn’t teach her anything else the young woman left T7 at the foot of the Forge and mounted the long ancient staircase to its heart. There, she placed the components on the Forge and provoked by the Force vowed, _“This weapon will be a light in the darkness.”_

It sent a shock through Luke because the words eerily reminded him of words he’d been provoked by the Force to speak during his niece Jaina’s knighting ceremony. The words none of them yet truly understood. Words that had prodded him to name her ‘Sword of the Jedi’. But Luke, outside the memory yet a part of it, noted with some trepidation that she’d been prodded to say the words _before_ the lightsaber was more than components scattered on a workbench. Was it the weapon that would be the light in the darkness…or was it—as Bengel Moor had said--the young woman herself?

The young woman knelt, dropping into a deep meditation trance as seeking the Force’s guidance on how to put the lightsaber together. Just as Luke had when he’d constructed his second lightsaber, the one he still carried, in Obi-Wan Kenobi’s old home in the Jundland Waste using his old Master’s notes. He watched with pride and a Jedi’s quiet awe of the Force as the components rose into the air under her command and came together as a whole and flooding everything around her with the Force—her lightsaber was complete. But even as she rose and activated the lightsaber for the first time, marveling at the glowing blue length of its blade the Forge quaked and something screeched and roared from beneath it. Her strength in the Force, amplified and channeled through the Forge, had woken something up.

Sensing it, the young woman turned to discover a gigantic beast, which neither she nor Luke knew what was but which resonated strongly with the darkside of the Force and looked something like a massive mutated Terantak, a Sith manipulated beast imbued with the darkside to seek out and kill Jedi--standing at the foot of the Forge steps roaring in primal fury. It ripped a huge boulder from the ground and hurled at her. The young woman dodged and leapt clear but there was no way she could escape the Forge without fighting the beast. So with the aid of T7 and her new lightsaber, she faced one last trial and fought the beast, eventually slaying it.

More exhausted than ever she, T7 following loyally and lovingly at her heels, made the long trek back to the Jedi Temple. When she arrived in the Council Chambers it was to find the Council in discussion about the Fleshraiders. They had been driven out and their armies sundered. Without Bengel to lead them they were scattering. Though still a possible threat they were no longer organized and had been robbed of access to  munitions.

The Grand Master greeted the young woman by noting that the Temple could have been devastated and the Order destroyed and that it was because of her efforts that they had not been and that the entire Order was in her debt. The young woman had been quick to point out that she’d only done her duty and that many others had fought as bravely as she had—humble to the end. But she was not shy—going on to point out that the enemy had found and exploited a weakness in the Jedi’s defenses and that they must remedy the situation to avoid another tragedy like what had happened on Coruscant. The Grand Master had firmly agreed and promised that all measures to do so would be taken but that now they had other concerns beyond the Fleshraiders, saying that the betrayal of the Twi’lek’s demanded a response from the Council. But Master Orgus pointed out that it was because of the young woman’s forgiveness and compassion that the Matriarch had surrendered herself to the Jedi for judgment.

 In light of that fact the Grand Master decided to ask the young woman what she thought should be done.  She had unhesitatingly pointed out that the entire thing could have been avoided if the Jedi had not bowed to politics and created the instability between the Jedi and the Twi’leks and helped the Twi’leks in the first place and that it was the Jedi who should make amends for abandoning them to die—which had ultimately lead to her and Master Orgus’s betrayal. She implored the Grand Master instead to support the Twi’leks  so that it never happened again.

The Grand Master then said that what the Twi’leks had done was nearly unforgiveable. And Master Orgus had stepped to his Padawan’s defense, noting that she was right and if they did forgive—and that he had—and worked with the Twi’leks it could only strengthen both communities. Furthermore he said that his brave young Padawan had captured and returned a fallen member of their order to the Light, saved the Temple from destruction and righted the wrong the Jedi had committed against the Twi’leks—showing great wisdom and compassion and that he could see no reason why she should remain a Padawan.

The Grand Master had agreed telling the young woman that her bravery, wisdom and sacrifice showed great depth of character and that she represented their best hopes for the future. Then she had declared that the young woman had arrived on Tython an Initiate but that she would leave it as a Knight of the Republic. The young woman, greatly honored and humble vowed to uphold every standard of the Jedi and the Galactic Republic to her dying breath only to have an excited T7 shatter the serious moment by enthusiastically asking to be assigned to the young woman permanently. 

The little droid’s enthusiasm elicited a laugh from all of them and the young woman admitted that she and the little droid had been through a lot together and made a good team. The amused Grand Master had then said that if that were true she could see no reason why T7 shouldn’t get his wish to the chittering delight of the little droid.

But even that brief moment of levity was short lived as they received a sudden priority call from Master Kiwik’s and her Padawan Kira Carsen on Coruscant requesting immediate assistance but unwilling to reveal more over a holocom channel. The Grand Master tasked Master Orgus and the newly Knighted young woman to go immediately to Coruscant to aid the Torgruta Jedi Master.

Despite her exhaustion, there would be no rest for the young Jedi. Duty called. Luke wondered it was a sign of the young woman’s future.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Reader request. Please R&R. Also, please answer a question...do you want to see ALL of the mysterious woman's memories or would that bore everyone?

** Star Wars: Lodestar **

**  Shattered Souls **

 

CHAPTER 10

 

Luke had lost all track of time. He could have been in the meld for moments or years, though inside of it, awash in the memories of a woman he was already growing to know but had not yet met, it felt as though he were living every moment in real-time with baited breath. It was only his great practiced skill that allowed him to keep the meld stable, to keep Cilghal and Tekli separate and the wall he had built to shield he and the woman’s primal portion of her mind as they worked. Had it been anyone else, they would have certainly been consumed by it.

The young Jedi left Tython without delay, despite her exhaustion, sent ahead by Master Orgus who stayed behind to tend to some remaining business, to assess the situation on Coruscant. She reported to the orbital station above Tython and caught a VIP transport, a Wanderer-class which was a converted Thranta-class corvette stripped of the bulk of its weaponry, booked for her by the Grand Master herself, which had stopped for refuel on the way directly to Coruscant.

Luke was somewhat disappointed that the young woman had gotten no respite after the war on Tython, not even a day, for even a Jedi, even one as talented and strong in the Force as the young woman was, needed some time to catch their breath and recoup. But he took some solace that she would at least have the days or hours, though he sensed it would be the latter, aboard the transport ship to rest before she was pitched into whatever awaited her on Coruscant that had Master Kiwiks so guarded and worried.

That however was not to be.

No sooner had the young woman and T7 gotten settled in the passengers’ lounge than she was approached by a Twi’lek woman wondering if, since she was a Jedi, any of the ship’s personell had contacted her. When the young woman asked why the ship’s crew would have any reason to contact her when she was a passenger just like the Twi’lek was, the Twi’lek woman expressed that she had heard rumors that the Esseles was being followed by an Imperial warship…despite the Treaty of Coruscant strictly forbidding it. Alarmed by the thought but certain that if there was an Imperial Warship following them that the crew would have alerted the passengers to get to safety the young woman began to say as much only to have her danger sense go off the instant before the klaxon began blaring.

The ship was under attack. Turbolaser fire rocked the ship, tearing through the transport’s inadequate shields and sending everyone to the deck plates. The laser fire was followed by the ominous hollow bang of boarding capsules puncturing the hull, even as the doors to the lounge leading to the rest of the ship were blasted open.

The young woman was quick to react, ordering the passengers to get back. She raced with T7 for the blasted doors and the bridge. The crew of a civilian transport would need all the help they could get under assault by an Imperial warship. She ran headlong into the first batch of boarders, Imperial Pacification Droids.

She and T7 battled their way through them, clearing the corridor and then herded, or carried the unarmed crew—those that weren’t dead--stranded there back to the passenger lounge to safety. Then she turned back and headed for the bridge, taking the nearest turbolift to the command deck even as the transport was mercilessly pummeled by turbolaser fire.

She reached it only to find the Captain dead, killed by an exploding console and the First Officer in a panic because weapons, comms, the engines and hyperdrive were offline, shields were gone and the warship had them in a tractor beam. They were dead in space. She managed to get the panicking First Officer calmed down and thinking again when the Imperial ship hailed them.

It was a Grand Moff Richas Kilran—a man the young woman recognized as being better known in the Republic as the ‘Butcher of Coruscant’ for his brutal and cruel violence during its sacking ten years before. He demanded they surrender and that they attempt no resistance and then demanded that they surrender a ‘known Anti-Imperial terrorist and seditionist’ named Ambassador Vyn Asara. The Empire would label a Republic Ambassador a terrorist. But the First Officer claimed to have no idea who Kilran was talking about and the crew manifest proved he was telling the truth. However, Kilran admitted that he already had Imperial spies onboard the ship and they had confirmed she was on board and to stand aside as Imperial Soldiers boarded the Esseles via the primary airlock—or be killed.

But the young woman knew even that was no promise of safety—even if they identified and handed over this mysterious Ambassador—Kilran wasn’t called ‘The Butcher of Coruscant’ for nothing, he was famous for never leaving survivors. He’d take the Ambassador and then kill them all anyway. So, she asked the First Officer to get to work getting their systems back on line while she dealt with the boarders. He agreed saying he’d send their security team—small though it was—to meet her there and she headed for the primary airlock.

At the airlock she was greet by a lone Mon Calamarian Commader named Narlock and three untried Republic Privates but together they faced down the invading Imperials and secured the airlock. Only for the Twi’lek that the young woman has spoken to just before the attack to come running in to tell them the attack on the airlock had been a distraction to give Kilran time to get a group of Mandalorians onboard who had triggered the ship’s security lockdown and taken the bridge, cutting them off and removing any chance they had unless they could get past the Mandalorians…and the lockdown.

She also revealed that _she_ was Ambassador Asara, wanted by the Imperials for simply doing her job as a diplomat, traveling to worlds previously seceded to the Empire during the Treaty of Coruscant and trying to convince them to come back to the Republic—which was in and of itself a violation of the Treaty. She’d been traveling under an assumed name for security purposes. That had worked out well.

There was no way out but to retake the bridge. So the group worked out a plan. Commander Narlock and his men would create a distraction to keep the Imperials from realizing that the young woman was heading for engineering to gain the aid of the ship’s engineer to get past the security lockdown. Ambassador Asara—who had come armed with a borrowed blaster--would stay with Narlock until the young woman had cleared a path and then join her in engineering.

The plan decided, the young woman and T7 made their way to engineering, battling their way through more Imperial boarders to reach it only to find the engineer and his team locked behind a security shield, which had descended to protect the engines from sabotage when the lockdown was triggered. They were trapped inside giving them only two ways to bypass the lockdown. Either shut down all the secondary power conduits to cut the power to the bridge and the lockdown—which would take time they might not have since Commander Narlock and his men were being overrun and the Mandalorians might kill the command crew before they could do it or initiate a reactor reset—which would vent the engineering compartment, killing the engineer and his team—but be quicker.

Ambassador Asara-who had made it down to join the young woman, voted to reset the reactor. In angry appall the young woman had declared they were not killing innocent people when there was an alternative. The Ambassador had relented, reluctantly, but hinting that the young woman’s hesitance to sacrifice the few for the many was going to get them all killed. But the young woman held to her convictions—reminding the Ambassador that they were trying to save lives not take them and that they could have just as easily sacrificed her to the same end as she was demanding the young woman sacrifice the engineer and his team but hadn’t. The Ambassador promptly shut up and the young woman headed out to disable the secondary conduits.

It was hard going and the young woman was faced with wave after wave of Imperials as she navigated through three decks, often forced the climb the turbolift shafts to get where she needed to be because they had sabotaged them and Force levitating T7 up behind her, but she managed it holding off the well armed, well trained and merciless Imperials while T7 shut down the conduits one by one.

She returned to engineering and reported her success to Ambassador Asara’s astonishment. And then—just a little bit spitefully—pointed out that the alternative worked, forcing the Ambassador to admit she had been wrong and apologize.  Then, saying nothing more of the Amabassador’s willingness to sacrifice others to save her own skin and the lockdown broken Asara went to help Commander Narlock create a second diversion to kept the remaining Imperials busy while the young woman went to face the Mandalorians on the bridge.

She was assailed by a horde of Mandalorians the instant she hit the command deck whose most ardent desire in life seemed to be to either blast the Jedi full of holes or incinerate her with their trademark flame throwers. Hitting a moving target, moving with Force Speed and that never moved on only one plan, utilizing Force Leap to go up and over, proved to be a challenge for them, to say nothing of defending against an expertly wielded lightsaber.

It wasn’t easy and she got more than a little scorched but she made it through the Mandalorians to the bridge where she was met by their leader, a huge brute of a man named Ironfist—who was holding the command crew captive and bound--he mockingly clapped to congratulate her for making it that far. She was a sight, in charred robes, covered in sweat and soot. But the worst mistake an enemy could make was to underestimate a Jedi.

She asked him to surrender, telling him she didn’t want to hurt him or his men and meant it. But the Mandalorian only laughed and said she’d have to be crazy to think she could take them all out alone much less him—the undefeated Mandalorian warrior and then ordered his men to vape her.

Forced to fight, she took down Mandalorians until it was down to only her and Ironfist. It seemed that the two were matched in combat and Luke worried that with her flagging already exhausted from Tython and now the attack on the ship that the Mandalorian would kill her.

Ironfist, seeing that the standard fare of blasters and flame throwers hadn’t stopped the Jedi resorted to dirty tactics…rocket launchers. The young woman was forced to spend her energy dodging the almost enescapable missles. Had she been anything but a Jedi she’d have been blasted into tiny pieces already. Evading the rockets but unable to get near enough to strike at the Mandalorian and knowing she was losing her strength, not even a Jedi could hold out forever, she got fed up. And stopped fighting.

Luke felt a flutter of panic in his throat. She simply stood there and let the laughing Mandalorian fire at her, confident in her demise. But at the last second, as the missles shot straight for her, she grabbed the rockets with the Force and sent them hurtling back the way they had come. Ironfist went wide-eyed in shock and tried to dodge but he was no Jedi and his own rockets blasted him into oblivion.

Luke mentally gave a whoop of triumph, feeling something of his old youthful exuberance at the unorthodox victory.

The young woman shuffled wearily over to the captured crew, who were cheering and crying out in amazement as she removed their binders, wearily waving off their praise. Ambassador Asara and Commander Narlock arrived, now that the bridge was safe and demanded to know if there were any spare shuttles in the hangar bay. It took the woman a moment to figure out why, tired as she was, but then she realized. They’d retaken the ship, they had the engines and hyperdrive back on line…but they were still locked in the warship’s tractor beam and the only way to disable it was to go there and disable it.

She winced and Luke felt sorry for her. She was worn to a thread and the worst was yet to come. And again he fervently wished he was there to help her.

The woman’s only response to the situation was a tired and exasperated, _“The tractor beam. Why not? We’ve been fighting insane odds all along, no sense in stopping now.”_

When it was decided that Ambassador Asara, disguised as nothing more than a Republic trooper would go with the young woman, because she had been onboard an Imperial warship before and knew where the tractor beam controls were located, along with Commander Narlock’s three men to hold the hangar bay against Imperial seizure once they got onboard, they moved off to head for the hangar bay but the First Officer asked to speak with the young woman privately. She nodded for Ambassador Asara and Commander Narlock to go on ahead and remained to hear what the First Officer had to say…and was flat disgusted with what he asked of her.

He’d spoken with the engineer and knew what Ambassador Asara had wanted the young woman to do. He thanked her for saving his crew and risking her own life in their place and then said that the only way they could be sure that the Imperials would stop chasing them, even if they got free of the tractor beam, was if they had no reason to chase them. He wanted the young woman to leave Ambassador Asara behind once they got the tractor beam deactivated, going so far as to attempt to bribe her with credits to do it, saying it was only what the Ambassador deserved for attempting to kill his crew to save herself.

The young woman had vehemently refused, saying that is she wouldn’t let Asara sacrifice his men she wasn’t going to let him sacrifice her either and left the First Officer to think about his shaky morality, wondering aloud whether or not everyone on the ship was trying to toss someone else under a speeder.

The young woman, Asara and Narlock’s men, made it alive into the warship’s hangar though there was no way to prevent the Imperials from knowing they were coming and they got a little cooked by laser fire on the way over. Once onboard the troopers stayed behind along with Ambassador Asara who would keep in contact with the young woman via comlink, giving her directions to get to the tractor beam controls and would serve as back up if the young woman died in the attempt.

 Expectedly, the instant they docked they were assaulted by Imperials as the warship’s alarms sounded an intruder alert. But the young woman, exhausted as she was, called on the Force to revitalize her lost stamina and, T7 ever at her side, fought through them to the corridor beyond, following Asara’s commed directions to head for engineering deck and that she would have to deactivate the power station before going for the tractor beam controls in the power core.

She and the little droid had to battle through more than thirty, security droids, auto-troopers and two dreadnaught battle droids to even get to the turbolift. Once on the engineering deck they met more resistance in the form of another horde, this time Imperial Troopers, Imperial Officers, more auto troopers and more Dreadnaught Battle Droids between them, the power core and the tractor beam controls.

They fought through them however and disabled the power station… only for the Grand Moff…fully aware of them being on board, decided to greet them by holocom, noting that he was truly impressed and that of all the things he’d ever seen, she topped the list. He mockingly apologized for not being able to greet them in person to which the young woman quipped that she was terribly sorry if she was inconveniencing him and would he prefer if they came back later.

The Grand Moff had laughed apparently amused and said that he had already ‘arranged accommodations’, that his forces would be along shortly to escort her there and that she would find these far more deadly that she had Ironfist before cutting communication. Resigned, she muttered, _‘Here we go again’_ , to T7 and prepared to fight her way through both the forces sent to apprehend her and whatever lay between here and the power core.

The woman’s sense of humor was growing on Luke and he would have laughed if he hadn’t realized the danger she was in and how utterly exhausted she was.

She was forced to battle through another forty enemies to get to the power core and when she did she was met by a massive ISS-7 Guardian Battledroid the size of an X-Wing guarding the core. Which was suspended over the reactor…with no railings. One misstep and she’d plummet to her death just as Palpatine had the first time. She set T7 to slicing the power consoles for the power core and went to face the huge, deadly, droid drawing on the Force yet again to keep going.

Taking one look at the perilous drop into the reactor the woman decided she really did not want to fight the massive droid where it could hurtle her off to her death with a single well placed shot. So she attacked the droid and then fled back down the ramp to the main deck of the power core room, tricking the droid which was massively armed but not terribly bright, to chase her onto ground of her choosing. There she battled the droid while T7 hurried to slice the power consoles until she managed to back it into a bulkhead, pinning it at her mercy and cut the massive thing into pieces.

Luke was terribly impressed. Sometimes the best way to win a fight wasn’t extravagant use of the Force or awe-inspiring lightsaber techniques, sometimes it was just good battle tactics.

In the meantime, T7 had successfully sliced the power consoles and the young woman drudged back up the ramp and disengage the tractor beam, then destroyed it so Kilran couldn’t recapture the ship. It provoked Kilran to start taunting her over the warship’s intership announcement channel. He calmly told her that this was getting out of hand and she was leaving him precious few options but to kill her even as Ambassador Asara was relaying that the way the young woman had gotten to the power core had been cut off, she’d have to find a different path back to the hangar. And the only other way to get there… was to go through the detention level to the waste collection center, through to the garbage compactor and out it’s lower chute to the other side of the maintenance deck.

Luke didn’t know if he should laugh at the utter irony of it or cry at the very real danger of being funneled into a trap of crushing death. He was struck by something Callista had once said to him, the Force had a sense of humor.

With a sigh the young woman simply resigned herself to the escape route and headed for the detention level. There she had to battle her way through more Imperial forces and once she got to the waste collection center, drop down into the compactor without breaking something on the long fall, Kilran taunting her all the while to surrender before he did something drastic. She ignored him and used the Force to control her fall, springing when she could from one collection pipe to another until she reached the bottom and then lowered T7 down as well.

The moment they were inside, Kilran activated the compactor. Luke couldn’t say he hadn’t seen that coming. The young woman and T7 scrambled to reach the lower chute before they were crushed to death. They made it. Barely. The walls of the compactor clanged together just as the young woman’s foot cleared the chute.

Kilran announced that she had left him no choice.

She made it out of the chute with T7 and back onto the maintenance deck only to find that she would have to fight her way through more Imperials who had taken control of the hangar deck despite their best efforts to hold the location. She did, exhausted, covered in soot, sweat, blood, bruises and whatever vile things had been in that garbage compactor only find her path into the hangar from this side blocked by ray shields even as the opposite side, the one she’d originally exited the hanger from, was entered by four Imperial Troopers…and a Sith Lord.

Horrified and knowing that the three inexperienced Republic soldiers and Ambassador Asara had zero chance of surviving without her, and that in her present condition their chances weren’t much better, she rushed to slice the door controls and disable the ray shields.

But a human, Jedi or not, can only move so fast, do so much. Before she could get the shields down the Sith had Force choked the life out of two of the Republic troopers, skewered another casually through the heart with his lightsaber and had Ambassador Asara suspended in the air, choking her to death with the Force. The ray shield fell and the young woman, calling on every bit of the Force she could draw to her, rushed to save Asara from the hands of the Sith.

Luke despaired but didn’t give up hope. The Force was with the young woman but she was running on pure adrenaline and the Sith Lord was fresh and full of power.

_“Let her go!” the young woman cried._

_“Greetings,” the Sith Lord said, unthreatened by her. He dropped Asara, injured but alive and turned to the young woman giving Asara a chance to crawl away to safety. “At last a real live Jedi. How have I looked forward to this. A true Sith cannot go long without a true challenge.”_

_“There is no need for violence. You create a conflict that does not exist. We can settle this matter peacefully,” the young woman tried to reason with the Sith._

_“To destroy a dangerous enemy, that is the way of a true Sith. I was promised a battle and I will have it. When I carve your heart from your chest your fellow Jedi will sense your defeat, as will my Master,” the Sith gloated._

_“The Force is life, not death. Give up your hatred. You don’t have to continue down the dark path. You can still embrace peace,” the young woman said, still trying to reach the Sith._

But Luke could tell she was too spent, that even if she had been aware of what she had done with Bengel she couldn’t have replicated it, not here, not now. But he admired her efforts terribly. And though he knew that even if she died, that this was a memory and he was inside her mind in his own time, he was still frightened for her.

This was no simple Dark Jedi who’d gained his knowledge by trial and error, this was a fully trained Sith Lord well versed in the ways of the darkside.

_“Peace is a lie! There is only passion and through passion, I gain strength. The power of the darkside is infinite! Are you ready to face oblivion?” the Sith railed._

_“I do not fear you. There is no darkness that does not flee from the light,” the young woman said._ And Luke could feel it, she didn’t, she’d given herself over to the Force.

_“There will be no fleeing from this fight!” the Sith raged and swung his light saber at her._

_She blocked it with her own and said sadly, “Then you leave me no choice.”_

Luke watched the woman brave the Sith Lord and his four troopers, fighting valiantly until both Sith and troopers lay dead around her. Utterly exhausted, she sank to her knees, trying to draw enough strength to get to the shuttle and Asara. But even in her hard won victory over the Sith she would find no respite.

Kilran came over the announcement channel again, to notify her he was charging his main turbolaser batteries again and that in a moment her pathetic ship and her pathetic friends would be nothing but floating space debris.

Somehow, the young woman found the strength to haul herself back to her feet and gather the injured Ambassador up, T7 whirring worriedly behind as they scrambling to get back on the shuttle and return to the Esseles before it was blasted into spacedust. Somehow, she piloted them back to the Esseles hangar deck and somehow, using sheer force of will and a flat refusal to give up born of a stubborn streak the length of the Hydian Way, she made it to the bridge at a dead run with the Ambassador in tow.

When she got there, she begged them to please tell her they’d calculated a hyperjump, any hyperjump, to get them out of there before the turbolaser could fire as she passed the injured Asara off to a medic. Thankfully, they had and as the young woman let herself sag against a bulkhead with relief the First Officer punched the button, hurtling the Esseles into hyperspace a nanosecond before the turbolaser fired.

The First Officer, who had rethought his moral choices, thanked the young woman for saving them all and said they all owed her their lives. He tried to reward her with a collection of credits taken up from the crew but she refused, claiming that it was the Jedi way, that it had been a duty and an honor to have helped them and expressing her sorrow that she hadn’t been able to save the three troopers that had gone with her. The First Officer assured her that he didn’t blame her for their deaths and that they’d died bravely. She agreed but still wished it had turned out differently.

Asara, now at least able to stand on her own feet and speak, approached and the First Officer, nervously but genuinely, told her he was glad to see she’d made it back safely too. Asara thanked the young woman as well, calling her a hero, which the woman humbly denied. But Asara also warned her that Kilran would not forget what she’d done and he would stop at nothing to get revenge.

The young woman thanked her for the warning and promised that she would watch her back and then wearily retired to her assigned compartment to use the refresher, collapse into a Jedi Healing trance and sleep, leaving the crew to see to the repairs and get them the rest of the way to Coruscant.

Luke felt every ounce of her exhaustion as if it where his own and he was desperately glad that she had finally gotten a respite, even it would be brief, a Jedi Healing trance could do wonders for one even in that short a period of time. But Luke worried that the young woman’s arduous trial by fire on Tython and her subsequent trial en route to Coruscant were harbingers of what was to come. The Force had a way of tempering you, setting you on a path that forged a tool of its own making for what was to come and if this was any taste of it…this constant ceaseless battle…he worried for the young woman. He didn’t want to see the gentle, empathetic woman cloaked in a warrior’s body turned bitter and jaded, broken by strife…and he was concerned at the tendency for her to end up by order or circumstance, fighting her battles alone.

When the young woman finally made it to Coruscant, blessedly without further issue and rejuvenated by her brief time in Healing Trance, it was to find that word of her deeds on Tython and aboard the Esseles had beaten her there. The only solace she had from the whispers of awe and wonder from others was that Courscant was so large and densely populated that as long as no one knew who she was, they didn’t bother to treat her any differently than anyone else. But she was still deeply bothered by the hero-worship that had followed her to Coruscant, alarmed by the potential danger it presented for people to see her as a hero capable of accomplishing anything without fail. And she didn’t even make it out of the spaceport to see the sweeping majesty of Coruscant’s skyscape before she was accosted by politicians—or at least a politician’s aide who had been lying in wait for her.

The smarmy and thinly veiled suck up was the aide to the senator of Coruscant Vanara Kayl and he had come with a ‘request’. The aide went on with a speech about how Coruscant still suffered in the aftermath of the Sacking with a shattered infrastructure, a booming refugee population and whole sectors of the city descending into anarachy and that all of those things hindered the rebuilding of Coruscant—and all of which were quite probably true—but they were used as nothing but selling points to his real objective. The Senator thought that the young woman was ‘specially qualified to deal with a dangerous and urgent threat’ and wished to meet with her immediately.

Luke recognized it for exactly what it was. A Senator swooping in to grab a young Jedi inexperienced with dealing with the political maneuvering and schemes of the Senate to subvert the Jedi to serve her interests before the young woman realized she was being used. Luke fervently hoped the wise young woman saw through the ploy.

She didn’t quite grasp that she was being baited but she did know her priorities. She told him she was on Coruscant on pressing business and that she was already late but promised to speak with the Senator if the aide cleared it with Master Orgus first. The aide-predictably-insisted that there wasn’t time and that she must speak with the Senator’s secretary Minister Imogh at the Senate Tower immediately but the young woman wouldn’t be pushed. She compromised by telling the aide that she would speak with the Minister and the Senator, but only after she had met with Master Orgus.  Annoyed but having little recourse the aide relented and the young woman headed with all speed for her meeting with Master Orgus and Master Kiwiks at the Senate Tower.

Luke privately snickered to himself at the aide’s failure to manipulate the young woman even if she hadn’t seen through the ploy—yet.

The young woman was however, delayed a few moments more, as she exited the spaceport and caught sight of the breathtaking skyscape of Coruscant in all its glory. The architecture was ancient, and in its way more regal than the Coruscant Luke knew, but it was still most certainly  recognizable as the same massive world-city and he didn’t blame her a bit for being taken by the sight. It was beautiful. But even as she took in the majesty of Coruscants towers, when she looked down, the many of the wounds of the planet’s sacking remained a decade later, black gashes and pit that glared back at her from below. She pulled herself away with some effort and continued on.

She made it to the Senate Tower, gawking like a child at its regal elegance the whole way—to Luke’s quiet amusement and pleasure--only to be confronted the moment she got inside by Minister Imogh, Senator Kayl’s secretary—who quite promptly blocked her path and que’d up the Senator via portable holocom, notifying the Senator that her ‘special appointment’ had arrived. She protested, thoroughly irritated and insisting that he was interfering with a Jedi in the course of her duties but was unwilling to offend the Senator directly since technically the Jedi were in the service of the Republic and the Republic was ruled by the Senate. Luke understood her frustration all too well.

The Senator quickly arrived and apologized for her abruptness but that time was a luxury she didn’t possess. The young woman didn’t miss the irony that the Senator was perfectly willing to rob _her_ of time she didn’t possess either as the Senator went on say that Coruscant was being inundated by refugees fleeing Imperial tyranny—many of which had been stranded there since the Sacking--and many of them had taken over the Old Galactic Market Sector, huddling in old warehouses and shops abandoned during the Sacking—and now they refused to leave.

However, if the Senator had hoped to gain the young woman’s sympathy she failed miserably. The young woman sympathized with the suffering refugees with nowhere else to go and asked if anything was being done to help them. The Senator insisted that they were trying to but that resources during the rebuilding were stretched thin and that a criminal presence had risen to dominate and exploit the refugees. The Migrant Merchant’s Guild, once a political advocacy group for the refugees, had turned over the years into a crime syndicate that had turned their former advocacy into a protection racket holding the refugees hostage to their rule with military grade munitions and attacked Coruscant Security Forces if they dared venture into their territory to stop them, setting fires and rioting. The Senator claimed they were facing an armed insurrection.

The young woman pointed out that Jedi were peacekeepers not police and that she had come on urgent business that she must attend to but the Senator all but held her hostage, trying to convince the young woman to help her. She claimed that the com lines to the sector were jammed, they’d lost contact with their security forces in the sector and the refugees were caught in the crossfire, innocent victims of the brutal criminals.

The last part got her. The Senator obviously had a great deal of experience with Jedi and knew exactly what chords to hit to get her way. The young woman couldn’t leave innocents to die, it wasn’t the Jedi way and it wasn’t _her_ way. Luke didn’t blame her when she agreed to help but he was silently cursing the Senator for using such a underhanded ploy and he wondered why the Senator hadn’t simply asked Master Orgus for help before now—the fact she’d gone after a politically inexperienced Jedi—made Luke deeply suspicious. 

The Senator told her to find her security chief Captain Winborn and he would help, then she’d thanked the young woman and finally let her leave to make her—now even later—meeting with Master Orgus and Master Kiwiks.

She arrived to find Master Orgus, Master Kiwiks, Padawan Kira Carsen, a Republic Mon Calamrian General named Var Suthra and a scientist named Eli Tarnis waiting for her.

Master Orgus dryly pointed out that she was late and the young woman apologized, noting that her ship had been attacked by Imperials and she had been temporarily kidnapped by a Senator on the way there. Master Orgus jokingly said he’d forgive her tardiness—this time and then warned her to be wary of politicians, that even their best intentions often came with a large quantity of self interest and they weren’t afraid to forget the niceties of democracy to satisfy that self interest. The young woman promised to remember and then they got down to business.

It seemed the Republic had constructed a planetary scale weapon without consulting the Jedi. Doctor Tarnis insisted that his work barely qualified as a weapon, it was most humane military technology ever developed. A planet prison that with a single activation supercharged the upper atmosphere of a planet, turning it into a planetary sized ion cannon. Any ships attempting to enter or leave the planet would be instant disabled.  It was, Doctor Tarnis said, perfect enemy containment without loss of life.

The young woman observed that you couldn’t contain the ‘enemy’ without casualties, even if all the planet prison did was keep ships from leaving or entering the atmosphere there would still be those who would try out of desperation or a misguided belief they could overcome the weapon and that the weapon could just as easily be used to capture and hold a planet for domination as well as defense. Doctor Tarnis was indignant but Master Kiwiks broke in pointing out that regardless of the points for or against the weapon it was far more likely it would be used for violence since Doctor Tarnis had allowed  the weapon’s design files to be stolen by a bunch of common thugs.

Doctor Tarnis, ever arrogant, brushed off the Jedi Master’s concern flippantly stating that he doubted the lot of thugs had the brain capacity to realize what they had and that the files were encrypted in any case.  General Var Suthra promised that his people were pursuing every possible lead and Master Orgus asked the General with all due respect that wasn’t it time the Jedi got involved and taking control of the situation. He said he and Master Kiwiks needed to speak with the Supreme Chancellor about what had happened he need the young woman out there looking for the design files. Master Kiwiks also advised her Padawan that she would stay to assist since her security expertise might come in handy.

The young woman had readily agreed to her task saying that anything was better than talking to politicians. Master Orgus had smiled calling her a Jedi after his own heart.

Luke couldn’t have agreed more.

But any other thought he might have had or the significance of it was lost as a tall dark-skinned man came rushing into the chamber in a hurry, arrowing straight for General Var Suthra.

The man was Agent Galen with the Strategic Information Service, what was Luke realized through the woman that era’s Republic Intelligence Service, and he had a lead on the criminals. General Var Suthra directed him to report to the young woman and Kira while he and the Jedi Masters went to speak with the Supreme Chancellor. Leaving Doctor Tarnis with her. Agent Galen switched debriefing gears so smoothly it was impressive.

He reported that thirty-two hours ago the thieves had raided a military storehouse, stealing not only the weapon’s design files but supplies and weapons. The young woman was quick to pick up on the correlation to the information she’d gotten from Senator Kayl about the Migrant Merchant’s Guild having military grade weaponry. Agent Galen continued reporting that the thieves’ leader had slipped up and been caught on security cam. He was a Rodian smuggler named Vistis Garn.

Doctor Tarnis expressed disgust and wondered why alien gangsters would want to raid a military storehouse. The young woman pointed out that they must have known what he was working on to make a strike that specific. Doctor Tarnis had-ever smugly sure of himself—insisted that was impossible and had to be a coincidence. The young woman however, doubted it. So did Luke. The young woman might be inexperienced with politicians but she had a sound strategic mind and she’d learn to handle the politicians in time.

The young woman kept the task set to her by Senator Kayl, to herself, letting Agent Galen tell her about the Guild as though she’d never heard of them and Luke agreed with her. Something wasn’t right. Agent Galen expressed the opinion that—armed as they were-- the Guild’s headquarters would be near impossible for anyone but a Jedi to reach. Doctor Tarnis, suddenly seeming to gather exactly what kind of trouble they were in—decided he need to get some air. Meanwhile the two Jedi decided Kira would stay behind and use Agent Galen fancy SIS security network to distract the thugs to give the young woman some  quality time with the smuggler Vistis. The young woman would report via an unjammable implanted comlink—to bypass the problem of jammed communications in the sector--when she had found Vistis.

So, freshly outfitted with a comlink in her skull, the young woman set off, the loyal T7 ever at her side—but Luke noted once again, alone--using the SIS’s and the Jedi’s authority to commandeer an airtaxi—and headed for the Old Galactic Market sector. Luke knew the area, but by his time, it had become an ancient abandoned network of tunnels below the habitable levels if Coruscant—he wondered if the Sacking was what had proved the area to become the empty and dangerous urban wilderness it was in his time.

When she got there, working her way through the initially civilized area nearest the landing pad, it was to be apprehended by yet another Senator’s aide—much to her befuddlement and alarm. How had they known where she was going?

At any rate, the aide revealed that he had come on behalf of Senator Doli-bur Barc who was ‘working to restore the Republic’—and wished he could be there among his people in person. The young woman had dryly observed that if the Senator had wanted to be there, he’d be there and politely asked the aide to dispense with the speech and get to his point.

 It came down to the Senator believing that to restore the Republic’s glory they had to reestablish their technological superiority. The young woman pointed out that they should be seeking superiority but balance. The aide had agreed-entirely missing the point—and the Senator had arranged to receive a shipment of advanced computer ships but that the shipment had been hijacked by the Guild and Republic Security was to afraid to try to retrieve them. The young woman pointed out that Republic Security had a lot on their plate at the moment as did she.

But—ever a compassionate and helpful person--she promised to look into it since she was heading that way anyway but would not promise anything more. The aide had accepted that and asked her to seek out Security Chief Denal-Zon—who had been running the investigation before Republic Security had given up and that he might know where the shipment had been taken to.  He prevailed upon her to return the shipment to the Senator’s office in the Senate Tower directly when—confident that it wasn’t an ‘if’—she retrieved it. The young woman thanked him for the information and set off again, working her way deeper into the sector which was surprisingly well kept and civil for something supposedly run by a group of political advocates turned gangster.

Eventually, she ran into Chief Denal-Zon completely by chance. He revealed that there was more to the situation than the Senator or his aid had said. The ‘advanced computer chips’ were control chips for remote Rylothian Slave Collars—patently illegal in Luke’s era or the young woman’s. Apparently, the Senator’s plan was to use the chips in slave collars to forcibly recruit and keep soldiers for the Republic, there by securing the Republic’s ‘technological superiority’. The young woman was deeply disgusted and alarmed.

The security chief knew what the Senator had planned but without the control chips as proof he had nothing to take to his superiors to out the Senator’s corruption. The young woman promised to retrieve them so that the Senator could be properly prosecuted for his corruption. The Chief had thanked her and she and T7 pressed on. Now she had three missions instead of one. It seemed that the young woman was destined to constantly have more than any one Jedi should have to handle on her shoulders.

While the concourse that separated the landing pad and its adjacent shops and cantinas had been perfectly civilized, all out war waited on the other side. She reached Captain Winborn and his few remaining men, who were pinned down behind barricades on this side of the separation unable to get past the gangster’s superior stolen firepower.

The man had never been so happy to see a Jedi in his entire life. He and his men were getting cut to pieces, under armed and not trained to fight an army of killers. The gangsters were smart, organized and obviously trained off world. He was desperate to cut power to the sector, because the gangsters hadn’t just taken over the Old Market sector…they were planning to bomb the Senate Tower by hiring slicers to access every network node in the sector in an attempt to take over the automated speeder flight paths to cause thousands of mid-air collisions and rain debris on the Senate Tower like a meteor storm. Things had just gone from dangerous and deeply worrisome to outright crisis. The plan to attack the Senate Tower along with the fact that the gangsters had stolen to plans to the planet prison couldn’t be a coincidence, the thugs were planning to take control of the entire city if not the whole planet.

The young woman, thoroughly trained in strategy and a quick study of it in the field, advised Captain Winborn to hold his position and keep the gangsters thinking nothing had changed while she notified Agent Galen to start evacuating the Senate Tower, shut down all travel via the automated speeders and then went to disable the nodes Captain Winborn and his men couldn’t reach.

The Captain looked like he might faint in relief and readily volunteered his men to her service. The young woman thanked him, relayed her findings to Agent Galen and plunged into the fray. She pressed back the gangsters, downing at least twenty on her way into the criminal held territory to reach the first node where she kept the thugs busy while T7 locked down the node. She and the little droid had to battle through another thirty gangsters and their droids despite avoiding them when she could to reach and lockdown the remaining two nodes, all the while herding civilians back toward the path she’d already cleared and safety to keep them from being killed in the skirmishing.

In the process of securing the nodes, T7 came across an encrypted message on the hijacked network. Unable to decrypt it themselves and with more pressing matters to tend to now that the danger to the Senate Tower and the speeder network were in hand, she had T7 copy the message and keep it until they could report back to Captain Winborn. Then continued on, heading for the Guild’s headquarters, deep in their territory.

When she reached it, she fought her way inside when the thugs refused to stand down, searching the facility for the stolen munitions, the slave collar control chips and the smuggler Vistis Garn. She found all three.

Visits, who appeared to be a coward, was holed up in a storage room cowering behind shelving. When he realized he had been found by a Jedi he didn’t give her time ask for his surrender. Instead, he proved his act of cowardice was exactly that, an act. The storage room was rigged with blaster turrets set to a remote. He fell back and activated them, forcing the young woman to battle him and the turrets. She destroyed both turrets and then, when he tried to shoot her point blank with his blaster defeated him by neatly slicing the barrel of the blast clean off. Panicked the smuggler surrendered saying that the Guild wasn’t paying him enough to die for them.

The young woman demanded the planet prison design files he’d lifted which he was more than willing to hand over but revealed—in the interest of striking a deal—that the Guild had already decrypted the files and he had already transmitted a copy to his client but he’d only tell her who had hired him if she promised to let him go. Somewhat amused, she agreed to his terms and the smuggler revealed that it was the Black Sun gang—a crime syndicate that still existed in Luke’s time and which he had faced off against himself—that had hired the smuggler.  He was working both sides and selling the plans to both gangs for double the profit. He didn’t know why Black Sun wanted the files and didn’t care he was only in it for the credits.

Not able to gain further information from the Rodian, the young woman was true to her word. She let him go—after she mind tricked him into giving up being a smuggler and finding something good to do with his life. The smuggler left mumbling about going home to Nar Shadda and settling down.

Luke was deeply amused and approving of the well played turn about by the young woman.

The young woman commandeered a repulsor sled, loaded up the stolen munitions and the slave collar chips then contacted Agent Galen with her news. He was pleased but refused to discuss it even over the unjammable comm channel because there had been a major security breech back at their location. He urged her to hurry back and he’d get her up to speed.

So with all haste the young woman and T7 hurried to return to the Senate Tower with their retrieved goods, stopping only long enough to deliver the evidence Chief Denal-Zon needed into his hands and to report to Captain Winborn and pass along the encrypted message T7 had discovered on the hijacked network. The Captain decrypted it with an old Guild code Republic Security already knew about and both he and the young woman were shocked to discover that Senator Kayl had created her own crisis and nearly gotten thousands of people killed in the process by taking credits from the Guild as payment for promised housing projects they never received. When she had refused and sent Republic Security to deal with them the Guild had retaliated by raiding the military warehouse and plotting to bomb the Senate Tower.

Was the entire Senate corrupt Luke wondered with chilling concern. Bad enough that half the galaxy was in the hands of the Sith Empire but if the Republic couldn’t even count on its own government and the Jedi were foolishly letting themselves be controlled by that government…it didn’t bear thinking about. Luke was having second hand flashbacks to what he knew of his Father’s time and what it had resulted in. The annihilation of the Jedi Order and the total domination of the Republic by Palpatine and his Empire.

Captain Winborn however was reluctant to deliver the message to the proper authorities for fear of retaliation against him for outing the Republic’s most beloved Senator. He wasn’t as brave as Chief Denal-Zon. The young woman assured him he didn’t have to. She’d have a chat with the Senator herself.

When she and T7 made it back to the Senate Twofer, handing off the recovered munitions to the Military she didn’t get more than three meters in the door before she was waylaid—again—by Senator Kayl’s secretary Minister Imogh. The young woman had intended to meet with Agent Galen first, the security breech was more urgent, but it seemed she’d have no choice but to address the issue of the Senator’s corruption now.

Luke could feel her burst of vehement agitation, borne of genuine annoyance and anger at the corruption she kept encountering in the very soul of the Republic but also borne of growing weariness. She’d just fought through a small army—alone—again and it looked as if the worst was yet to come. Luke remained concerned and distressed by it. The young woman was being thrown hard and fast into ever increasingly convoluted and dangerous (even if it didn’t appear so initially) situations.

But true to her nature and her training as a Jedi she calmed herself with little effort as the Minister—oblivious to her awareness of the truth—exuberantly called the Senator to his side. The Senator however was solemn and guarded, dismissing the Minister curtly, leaving her alone with the young woman.

She admitted that Captain Winborn had contacted her and told her about the attack the young woman had thwarted that would have killed thousands—including her. She thanked the young woman for what she had done tersely and then confessed that Captain Winborn had told her that the young woman had the incriminating communication in her possession and that she would like it destroyed. It wasn’t a request.

The young woman, to Luke’s pride but not his surprise—refused telling the Senator she was a subject to the laws of the Republic as anyone else. The Senator claimed that the young woman was too young, that she didn’t understand. She then went on to try and place the blame with the Jedi for withdrawing and leaving Coruscant to rebuild alone—despite the fact that the Republic had blamed the Jedi for the Sacking of Coruscant in the first place and hadn’t wanted their help. She went on to say that her opponent in the elections was a vile man who was lazy, stupid and corrupt with no interest in rebuilding only taking from those who had suffered in the wake of the war. She’d had to win—for the good of the Republic—by any means necessary. But her opponent had far richer campaign funders so when the Migrant Merchant’s Guild had approached her asking for housing developments and offering her credits to get them—she’d accepted their ‘donations’ to fund her campaign and beat her opponent and that she wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.

Greatly dismayed and disgusted the young woman had countered that the Senator should hear herself, that after everything that had happened she still wouldn’t admit to being wrong—even though what she had done had nearly cost thousands of lives when her plan backfired.

The Senator insisted she wasn’t wrong, claiming if the young woman had been there when Coruscant was sacked and trillions killed, if she’d seen the poverty and despair—she’d understand insisting she’d stolen from those criminals to rebuild Coruscant for its people and set things right and that she would see the Guild brought to justice but that the young woman held in her hands the power to ensure she succeeded in doing so. She begged the young woman to let her continue ‘healing’ Coruscant and destroy the recording.

But the young woman would not give in telling the Senator she was wrong and admitting that while she hadn’t been on Coruscant when it was sacked she had felt every person killed die and that she had seen the poverty and despair the Senator spoke of in the short time she’d been on Coruscant but advising her that perhaps there were times that the end justified the means but when you built your entire argument of a series of those times—or a willingness to continue to do so—she’d find she had built an entire philosophy of evil. And that other’s would only follow her example as the right one—justifying what they did in the name of justice and righteousness—to do evil things. That if she really loved the people of Coruscant she would admit her mistake and let them decide whether or not to forgive her and set an example of repentant good not shameless evil.

The Senator became disgusted with her, refusing to admit what she had done was wrong and saying that the Jedi could think of her if dishonest if she liked but that she was just being a realist but that there was no point in arguing it with someone with outdated ideals that caused more harm than good.  But she admitted she couldn’t force the young woman to destroy the recording and that she wouldn’t make her go public with it. She’d call an emergency meeting in the Senate, tell them the truth and let them decide.

The young woman, trying to reach the belligerent Senator, said it was for the best, that Coruscant would be rebuilt with or without her and promised to help finish the good  the Senator had started despite going about it the wrong way.

The Senator had wryly suggested that perhaps the young woman should run for office, promised to see her properly recognized for her heroism in thwarting the attack on the Senate tower—which the young woman insisted wasn’t necessary—and bid her farewell.

Luke thought that perhaps, the young woman had gotten through to the Senator after all. The young Jedi was learning, quickly, in more ways than one and more out of sheer necessity than anything else. He just hoped it wasn’t too much, too fast. 

The young woman—didn’t see it at the moment however—she was just relieved that the incident was over and she was no longer being held hostage by Senators when she had a more important mission to worry about. She drew upon the Force to refresh herself, to reenergize her tired body and went to find out what it was Agent Galen was so being so secretive about.

She returned to their meeting room in the Senate Tower, reporting to Agent Galen that she had gotten the files but that the smuggler had transmitted a decrypted copy to the Black Sun. Kira was noticeably absent and she asked about the Padawan’s whereabouts as Agent Galen passed the files off to one of his people to go over and find out what they contained.

Agent Galen admitted that Kira was partly why he had wanted the young woman to hurry back so quickly. He told her that while she had been gone kidnappers had grabbed Doctor Tarnis the designer of the prison planet.

Shocked, worried and slightly confused the young woman demanded to know how that could possibly have happened since the Senate Tower was the most secure building on Coruscant and was crawling with guards.

Agent Galen said the guards hadn’t stood a chance, the kidnappers knew exactly where to hit them and that Kira had led a security detail in pursuit but the kidnappers split up during the chase. He started to explain more as the young woman grew deeply solemn—realizing the only way the kidnappers could have known where to hit the Senate Tower  to capture Doctor Tarnis was if there was a traitor inside the Senate Tower who’d supplied hem with the information—even as Agent Galen’s portable holocom went off.

It was Kira and she was obviously in trouble. She had the kidnappers pinned down but they wouldn’t surrender, they were taking heavy fire and she didn’t know how long she could hold them. That was all they got before the call cut off.

Agent Galen noted that Kira was in over her head.

The young woman barely curbed the desire to snap that, yes she was thanks to him, and wanted to yell at Agent Galen for letting an 18 year old Padawan lead a security detail in pursuit of kidnappers instead of himself but she didn’t, it would be vital wasted time. Instead, she demanded to know where Kira had made the call from.

Agent Galen said the signal had come from the spaceport and that the kidnappers were probably trying to take the Doctor offworld. But the young woman—fully aware of the implication—was already out the door, running with Force enhanced speed for the nearest speeder pad and leaving poor T7 wailing miserably behind with Agent Galen.

She swept right past anyone in her way, who scattered with cries of startled alarm, barely registering that a Jedi had just blazed past them and seized the first speeder she could get her hands on—not even slowing down—just hollering back over her shoulder that she needed to borrow it even as she was already zooming away. She proved the Jedi had been fully justified in placing her in the Jedi Starfighter Corp. as she steered the speeder, zipping into, out of, through, over and under the congested traffic of Coruscant’s skylines like a crazed hawk-bat at speeds that broke every law in the databank and would have terrified even the most daring podracer out of five years of their life.

Luke felt sorry for anyone unfortunate enough to ever meet her in a space battle, anyone trying to get a target lock on her would have a hell of a time but the starfighter pilot in him itched to try himself against her, to race against her and match his skills to hers.

_The young woman didn’t even stop when she got to the spaceport, speeding right past the port authorities into the building itself, hurtling down the corridors, dodging bystanders expertly as she reached out with the Force in search of Kira, but the sound of blaster fire would have told her where the Padawan was in any case._

_The young woman plunged straight through the open blast doors of the hangar bay from which the blaster fire was coming, assessed the situation with a warrior’s trained eye in less than an instant, realized she’d had the luck to come in on the side Kira and the security team were pinned down on, ducked behind makeshift barricades and personal portable blast screens as the kidnappers hammered them from across the hangar and acted._

_She pointed the speeder directly at the kidnappers, stood up in midflight and back flipped into a Force leap, letting the speeder keep going as she landed neatly behind Kira. The speeder careened into the kidnappers’ barricades and exploded into flames, sending the kidnappers scattering to avoid being caught in the explosion or cooked alive--buying Kira, the young woman and the security detail time to regain their footing and giving them time to formulate a plan while the kidnappers collected themselves in the chaos._

_The young Padawan gawked at the young woman. “Nice entrance and just in time,” she said in relief. “These guys get points for courage but we’re a little outnumbered. There’s more than a few trigger happy thugs over there.”_

_“I’d say there’s a lot more than ‘a few’ from the sound of things,” the young woman said._

_“The kidnappers are threatening to kill Doctor Tarnis. But they might be bluffing. I’m not even sure this bunch have him,” Kira added.  “We lost the others.”_

_“Have you tried talking to them? Are they open to the possibility of surrender?”_

_“After that stunt you just pulled? I doubt it. But I tried negotiating with the leader. He shot at me. Very rude.” Kira quipped and then looked at the young woman with a frightened desire for guidance hidden behind her bluster. “So how do we handle this?”_

_“I won’t risk them killing Tarnis. Even if they don’t have him we have to act as though they do until we know otherwise. We’ll do this the hard way.”_

_“Then you shouldn’t go in alone. I borrowed a stealth field generator from Agent Galen, makes me practically invisible. I can sneak in first then when you attack I’ll take a few thugs by surprise. What do you think?”_

_“It’s a good plan,” the young woman agreed. “Suits me just fine.”_

_“Really!?” Kira blinked at her in surprise._

_“Yes,” the young woman said. “You’ve made it this far and held your position against bad odds. You’re doing well.”_

_“Great!” Kira exclaimed delighted with the encouragement. “Now you see me…” She touched a small device on her belt, grinned and disappeared in a flash of light. “Now you don’t.”_

_It was the young woman’s turn to blink in surprise, finding it mildly odd to be listening to someone who she couldn’t see with her eyes though she could still feel her there through the Force. “I want one of those.”_

_Kira chuckled. “Sorry, there’s just the one. I’ll get into position and attack on your signal. Let’s rescue us a Doctor.”_

_The young woman nodded and ordered the security detail to stay back and guard the exit for any stragglers in case the kidnappers tried to make a break for it on foot. And assaulted the kidnappers from the front. Caught by surprise as they were still trying to collect themselves from the speeder she’d all but thrown at them, the first few went down easily but it didn’t stay that way._

_The young woman fought through twenty Black Sun thugs before she could get inside, racing up a ramp to the hangar’s control deck where she could see more of them holed up behind the lowered shield. She could feel Kira beside her, waiting and ready._

_The young woman, sliced through the control deck door controls, disabled the shield and gave an almost imperceptible nod to Kira. Together they raced inside._

_The young woman, being the only visible one, was assaulted immediately, three of the thugs rushing her en mass._

_Kira force pushed another one across the control room to bounce off the wall into unconsciousness but was immediately struck by blaster fire because she’d given away her position._

_“Kira!” the young woman cried in alarm, distracted for an instant in worry over the Padawan’s safety and nearly costing the young woman her head as one of the thugs that had rushed her swung at her neck with a vibrosword._

_The young woman ducked at the last second and drove the hilt of her lightsaber into the man’s gut, knocking the wind out of him then clocked him under the chin on her way back up. He tumbled to the ground out cold and the young woman Force leapt clear of the other two to put herself between the remaining thugs and Kira who she felt through the Force was thankfully unconscious but not wounded. The stealth shield generator had deflected the worst of the blast shorting out and knocking the Padawan unconscious in the process._

_The fight was on. The remaining two thugs she’d leapt clear of doubled back and the four on the other side of the room came at her in a mob. Blasters firing and vibrosword swords swinging. Even when the opponent wasn’t a Sith, fighting six people at once took skill and wasn’t easy but she did it. Only one remained alive at the end and he knelt, clutching his wounded side and glaring at her._

_“Jedi scum!” he spat. “I’ll kill you!” He vowed viciously, realized he was in no position to kill anyone wounded and disarmed. “Some day.”_

_Behind them, Kira came around and struggled to her feet, shaking off the discharge of the shorted shield. “He sure killed my stealth shield generator,” she complained as she came to join the young woman. “Oh well. It was fun while it lasted.”_

_“Are you alright?” the young woman asked the Padawan._

_“I’m fine,” Kira insisted. “Just a little headache. Isn’t team work grand?”_

_“You did well, Padawan. You handled yourself like a true Jedi, Kira”_

_“Wait. I want a holo of that so I can play it back for Master Kiwiks,” Kira joked and then grew serious. “No sign of Doctor Tarnis though. That kind of puts a damper on things.”_

_“We were the decoys,” the remaining thug spat. “Now you’ll never see your little Doctor again._

_“Is that so?” Kira said, she looked at the young woman. “Give me a minute with this guy. I’ll make him talk.”_

_The young woman arched a brow at the Padawan but didn’t feel that Kira had any violent intentions toward the thug. She was wary but curious how this bitingly sarcastic Padawan planned to get the thug to reveal the doctor’s location. She shrugged and waved her on. “Be my guest. If nothing else this should be entertaining.”_

_“Oh. Thanks for the encouragement,” Kira muttered sarcastically. “The thing is we don’t need him to talk…when I can just read his mind.”_

_It was all the young woman could do not to laugh aloud as Kira very deliberately and ominously knelt in a meditation position and lowered her head suggestively as the thug went wide-eyed and began to panic._

_“What? Stop that! Get out of my head! Get out!” he railed, terrified. “The doctor’s in the Black Sun headquarters! Salaar has him! Just leave me alone!”_

_Kira stood up and the young woman was biting her tongue hard to keep from breaking into gales of laughter._

_“Cheap thugs will believe anything,” Kira snarked. “I can’t read your mind, stupid.”_

_The thug gawked in outrage. “You… you tricked me?”_

_“Smooth Kira,” the young woman admitted and laughed “Very smooth.”_

It was smooth and dirty and audacious. It reminded Luke, heart-breakingly of something Mara would have pulled. Caustic wit and all. She was impatient and impulsive, more than Mara had been, but she was little more than a child—that would come with time.

_“Thank you,” Kira said. “I’m here all day.”_

_“Black Sun is a major crime syndicate,” the young woman said growing serious again. “Whatever they want with Tarnis, we’d better save him, quickly. You and the security handled things pretty well before I got here. Think you can clean this up? I need to report this to Agent Galen.”_

_Kira blinked in surprise at the young woman again, obviously shocked at the about of trust she was being given. “Really? Yes! You bet we can. You trust me to handle this?”_

_The young woman smiled at her and it was a beautiful smile._ The open, free one Luke had only ever seen her grace Master Orgus with. The one that wasn’t tempered by Jedi calm or doctrine—just her. The Padwan’s rough charm had disarmed her. _“If no one ever let’s you do things for yourself, you’ll never learn to do them Kira.”_

Luke knew where that sentiment came from. The young woman’s lifetime of being beaten over the head with the non-attachment rule by the Order until she had withdrawn from any attachment at all, a state from which Luke was glad she had finally emerged thanks to Master Orgus and because if it he thought perhaps that she might find a friend—and a balance to her own seriousness—in Kira.

The young woman—relaying what had happened via her com implant en route to Agent Galen--arrived back at the Senate Tower to find Masters Orgus and Kiwiks had returned from their meeting with the Supreme Chancellor along with General Var Suthra and that things had taken a second far graver turn for the worse than a kidnapped imperiled scientist. The group was quietly but strongly involved in a fierce argument.

The design files that had been stolen and retrieved had data not just on the planet prison but on every weapon prototype and research facility, the Republic had. The General was irate. The Republics most powerful experimental weapons—superweapons—and the Black Sun now had access to them. But the young woman was dismayed and deeply disturbed that the Republic had been building caches of superweapons as though this were the Empire not the Republic and hadn’t told the Jedi they had them—again. She was also well aware that they should be more concerned not that Black Sun had access to them but _why_ they wanted access to them in the first place. She asked what the prototypes were and why the General hadn’t felt the need to enlighten them before now. The General furiously shot back that things were called top secret for a reason.

Master Orgus asked the General—who was an old friend to him—to calm down and pointed out the young woman’s question was a fair one but he would have to answer it later, they needed to move now to protect the superweapons from being stolen and used against the Republic with which all the Jedi agreed. The General revealed that the prototypes and their research facilities were located on three off world, hidden bases, armed with minimal defenses so they didn’t draw attention and leaving them desperately vulnerable to attack.

Master Orgus decided that he and Master Kiwiks would split up to protect and secure two of the prototypes while Agent Galen took the third. The young woman would get the ‘fun’ part—rescuing Doctor Tarnis and the copied data files from Black Sun.

Concerned she asked if she should go with them to help secure the weapons  instead but Master Orgus insisted that if she dealt with Black Sun now they might not need to secure anything. Master Kiwiks added that her Padawan, Kira, would stay behind to, taking Agent Galen’s place as computer expert in case the young woman needed it. Master Orgus warned her that Kira was impulsive but to give her a chance, that he thought they would make a good team. The young woman had replied that they already did, that Kira was a little rough around the edges but she liked her. Master Kiwiks urged her to share her wisdom with Kira and then General Var Suthra escorted the Masters to the spacedock and their ships. Agent Galen stayed behind only long enough to put all his resources at the young woman’s disposal, turning over command of his men to her—including a special tactical unit of experience security officers stationed in Black Sun territory. He advised her to seek out the groups commander, Sergeant Nidaljo and promised he’d tell him that she was coming, get Kira plugged into the security network and caught her up on what was going on before he left—laving the young woman free to head for Black Sun territory without delay.

And yet again—Luke noted—leaving her to fight alone until she reached Sergeant Nidaljo.

The young woman left Agent Galen and the Senate Tower, collecting T7 as she did—who adamantly fussed and screeched at her for leaving him behind. Luke could understand some of what the droid was saying but the ancient—and he was ancient having been built 150 years before the young woman’s time and never memory wiped, serving a dozen Master’s (or partners as the droid preferred to call them) in that time—but he was still learning the droid’s antiquated form of binary and so he missed some of what the droid said.  But what he didn’t miss what the droids fierce loyalty or his absolute and innocent almost childlike devotion to the young woman (he like those she met, was awed by her and seemed to be convinced the young woman could accomplish anything with a wide-eyed idealism)—perhaps she wasn’t entirely alone after all. It wasn’t the same and the little droid would never understand the depth of loneliness she felt but it was something at least. Luke hoped it would be enough.

The pair didn’t get far however before they started being waylaid by half a dozen people in need—at least to their way of thinking—a Jedi’s help. Everything from a Senator who reached out to the young woman desperate to understand the maddeningly confusing droid representatives of the Gree Enclave sent to assist in the repair of the city’s infrastructure damaged during the sacking to a member of the ‘True Republic’ movement convinced another Senator was trying to force the Republic to ally with the Empire and they needed a Jedi to steal documents proving it from the Senator’s courier droid to an undercover SIS agent that wanted her to help her  find out the location that the Black Sun was using to hide hijacked contraband weapons so her cover wouldn’t be blown.

All of it the young woman politely refused since she had a far more pressing mission but promised to send aid, relaying it all to the returned and newly security network ensconced Kira at the Senate Tower. The young woman figure if Agent Galen was going to put her in charge of all of his resources, she and Kira might as well use them for something—something that helped people instead of just skulking around gathering information and if the SIS couldn’t find the resources for it…it didn’t exist.

Luke approved. The young woman was quick on her feet and was already learning to use the resources available to her to do what needed doing without trying to do it all herself—saving her own waning strength for the Doctor’s rescue.

But to his disappointment, even that newly acquired talent wasn’t enough to spare her. When she got into Black Sun territory it was to find the entire place in chaos—the place was a warzone and she and T7 were dodging blaster fire from the moment they hit the landing pad. The security patrols had given up and abandoned the area—refusing to come back and threatening to mutiny or quit if forced to--leaving the civilians caught in the crossfire to fend for themselves and die in the process—all but one beleaguered and embittered old veteran who should probably have long since retired but refused to give up the fight even if he had given up hope. Alone he had no hope of succeeding and was desperate to stop the Black Sun’s sadistic games amidst the fighting.

They were stealing supply crates that the security patrols had—before giving up and fleeing—dropped for the trapped civilians who couldn’t even get out to get food the fighting was so heavy—then taking the supplies but putting the crates back where they found them, rigged to explode when a hapless starved civilian tried to open what was supposed to be their saving grace. They left just enough of the crates with a few paltry supplies left in them so the civilians wouldn’t know which ones were death traps and which weren’t so the desperate civilians would keep trying and taking bets on which of them would get blown up next.

The young woman was so disgusted by it she was nauseous. She knew time was of the essence and she knew what it would cost her in personal reserves—but she couldn’t and wouldn’t leave the civilians to be slaughtered in the Black Sun’s sick games. She promised she would stop them and commended the old officer for at least trying against no-win odds when no one else had. The poor old guy burst into tears he was so grateful and touched and when she told him to get out of there before he got killed he went smiling and hopeful—for the first time in a long time.

The district was a disaster area, fires burned everywhere and the cries of injured and dying civilians filled the air. There were heavily armed gangsters, hunter droids and even snipers everywhere and the place looked more like it had been hit by a strafing run by bombers than an army. And it was an army. No wonder the security patrols had given up.

But the young woman took it all in, drew on her calm center—and leapt into the fray. Luke’s heart swelled with pride at her courage and her integrity but he also developed a cold pit of fear for her safety. Again, she was facing an army, alone and against impossible odds just to reach her destination and save countless lives along the way from the Black Sun’s sadism.

She and T7 battled their way deeper and deeper into Black Sun territory, fighting one wave after another of Black Sun forces and disabling the rigged supply crates as they went. Luke’s breath caught in his throat at one point as two starved children—a brother and sister by the look of them who couldn’t have been more than ten years old—approached one of the crates before the young woman could reach it. But the young woman made it to them in time, nearly breaking a leg in her bid to get there and skidding to a stop between them and the crate.

The children—starved as they were—saw only a person intent on keeping them from the food they desperately needed. But the young woman, herded them up, discovering that they were both orphans—their parents killed during the war. They’d been scrounging a living down here since they were barely able to walk. She explained that the supply crates were dangerous and gave them all of the food capsules she possessed, standard equipment for a Jedi, with the full knowledge that she had no idea how long she’d be trapped down there herself—but knowing the capsules would save their lives. Then she stashed them in a safe place, hiding them in a burned out apartment and made them promise to wait for rescue—that she’d send someone for them—relaying the information to Kira even as she said it.

The children were beside themselves with joy and gratitude—no one in all the years they’d been down there had ever offered to help them—they didn’t even know what a Jedi was. But the young woman and T7 left them better off than they found them, safe and soon to be plucked from the horror of their lives and placed in the care of those who would ensure they got an education and spent the rest of their childhoods the way children should.

Back into the fray she and the little droid went, the young woman growing steadily more exhausted from the demands of fighting an army single-handedly, drawing on the Force constantly to keep from succumbing to fatigue as well as for combat.

By the time they reached the location of the tactical unit Agent Galen had sent the young woman to find—which was overrun with Black Sun she had to battle through just to get inside—it was to discover Sergeant Nidaljo in the midst of ordering his men to prepare to evacuate the area. They had tried to secure a perimeter around the Black Sun’s headquarters in advance of her arriving per Agent Galen’s orders but the Black Sun had proved too much for them to handle—they’d lost seven of their number—more than two-thirds of the unit. There was only Sergeant Nidaljo and two others left alive and the Black Sun hadn’t suffered a single casualty. The Sergeant was pulling out before they all died.

The young woman told him not to panic, she was there now and she’d help them. But the Sergeant wasn’t hearing it. He claimed she had no idea what they’d been up against—never mind she’d just fought an army by herself to get there—and they weren’t equipped to fight the Black Sun’s contraband military grade weaponry.

Luke began to wonder if there was anyone left in the Republic who hadn’t lost all hope but the young woman. It was Palpatine’s domination of the galaxy all over again, the Sith Empire didn’t have to even try to conquer the half of the galaxy the Republic still—tenuously—held. The lack of hope consumed by despair was doing it for them.

But the young woman had hope enough for them all. She told him if they surrendered now and ran away, his men would have died for nothing. That there was still a Doctor in the Black Sun headquarters waiting to be rescued. Was the Sergeant just going to leave him to die? That this was a moment of truth. Would he give up and run—and let evil win. Or would he stand up and fight?  That there was always hope, even if it was small.

Luke felt that strange sensation in the Force again. The same one that she’d used unconsciously in desperation on Bengel Morr and was using just as unconsciously again—reaching out for the Sergeant and his men. What _was_ that?

 The Sergeant caved. He reluctantly agreed that he’d go with her but he wouldn’t make his last two men. But that didn’t matter, they rallied, eagerly even, saying the young woman was right they couldn’t give up now and one piped he’d always wanted to fight alongside a Jedi.

Then—together—they planned their raid on the Black Sun headquarters. The unit couldn’t get in until the base’s security network was disabled, the young woman would take that task and attack from the front while the unit took the back entrance—dividing the Black Sun’s forces--and they’d meet in the middle. By the time they’d finished planning the attack, the Sergeant was as eager to help as his men. She’d done it again, turned certain defeat into a fighting chance…into hope.

The raid on the Black Suns’ base was hard and fast, an exercise in infantry blitzing as the Black Sun forces scrambled to deal with being attacked on two fronts, by cosmically few but determined assailants.

The young woman made it to the rendezvous point first, disabling the security network by the simple of expedient means of a lightsaber to the innards of the security consoles only to stop dead in her tracks in stricken horror, to find the Black Suns’ leader, Salaar, surrounded by guards, in mid…frantic…holocall with…Doctor Tarnis…who wasn’t a Doctor. It couldn’t be.

_“Tarnis, we risked everything for you—stealing those data files, faking your kidnapping—and this is how you repay us?” Salaar railed at the dark robed figure on the holocom pedestal. The young woman felt sick dread turn into a ball of ice in the pit of her stomach. It had all been a trap, a diversion, all of it._

_“You were compensated with enough weapons and armor to make Black Sun invincible,” the figure with Tarnis’s face and voice said unapologetically._

_“Invincible?” Salaar cried incredulously. “There’s a Jedi carving up my base! This is your fault! We never should have trusted the Sith!”_

_“If a Jedi has come for you Salaar…,” Tarnis—the young woman was no longer in doubt that it was him—said, “…it wasn’t my doing.”_

Luke felt what she was going to do before she did it. He wanted to cry out. To stop her. Again he cursed that he wasn’t _there_ , that this wasn’t _now_. That he couldn’t help her.

 _“Tarnis! You traitor!” the young woman yelled in furious betrayal—driven to the edge of exhaustion and too stricken, too shocked, by the discovery of Tarnis’ betrayal to keep her presence hidden and stepping forward into the jaws of Salaar and his men._ She was incredibly strong in the Force, skilled, talented, a Jedi in every sense of the word—but she was still young—and human. Luke had been no exception at her age. _“You won’t get away with betraying the Republic, ‘Doctor’ Tarnis!”_

_“The name is **Lord** Tarnis,” the revealed Sith condescended. “I’ve shed that old skin.”_

_Salaar turned to face the young woman, armed and arrogant, sure of his safety surrounded by his guards, as Tarnis went on via the holo._

_“I have no time for this nonsense.”_

_A second Black Sun guard slipped up behind her, a blaster to her head. But she didn’t flinch, didn’t react in fear. She could feel Sergeant Nidaljo and his men approaching through the Force. Tarnis smiled viciously on the holo._

_“Finish your pointless battle. Coruscant’s fate is already sealed.”_

_The young woman’s blood ran cold as Tarnis disconnected the call. He was going to seize the planet prison prototype and use it  Coruscant. They’d all be trapped on the surface at the Empire’s mercy, unable to escape. Fish in a barrel._

_Salaar grinned triumphantly at her as the guard behind her started to pull the trigger. The blaster shot rang out. But it wasn’t from the guard. The guard dropped, dead, to reveal Sergeant Nidaljo behind him with his men._

Luke breathed again.

_The young woman activated her lightsaber. “Glad you could join the party, Sergeant.”_

_“Wouldn’t miss it,” he said._

_The young woman looked, angry but controlled again, at Salaar. “Care to surrender?”_

_Salaar snarled. “Kill them all!”_

_And the fight was on again. The young woman, T7, Sergeant Nidaljo and his men made short work of the over confident Salaar and his guards. After, the young woman drew a long, calming breath struggled through exhaustion, furious betrayal and terror for Coruscant and everyone on it, to face the Sergeant._

_“I can’t believe it!” the Sergeant exclaimed in exhilaration, unaware of the dire peril the planet was in. “We just took down Salaar! Black Sun won’t forget that anytime soon! We lost some good soldiers but this victory gives their deaths meaning!”_

_“Your men fought bravely. You should be proud,” the young woman commended._

_“Thank you for leading this mission,” the Sergeant said. “Thank you for giving us back hope. Black Sun will have reinforcements here soon. Any sign of the man you came to rescue?”_

_The young woman took another deep breath, about to tell him what had happened when Kira popped up through the holo com, having sliced the channel._

_“There you are! I lost you for a while. Something was interfering with your comm implant. We intercepted Salaar’s holo call to Tarnis. I can’t believe he’s a Sith!” she said alternating from relief to find the young woman alive and fury at their betrayal. Then she grew solemn. “But that’s not the worst news. The planet prison prototype here at the lab? It’s a fake. Tarnis already stole the real one.”_

_The young woman turned stark white. He wasn’t **going** to do anything. He **was** doing it. **Now.** “Trace that holo call. We have to find him!”_

_“Already on it,” Kira promised. “Get back here. And hurry.”_

_“On my way,” the young woman promised._

_“Sounds like your work has just started,” Sergeant Nidaljo said solemnly. “Come on, we’ll help you get out of here a little faster than you would alone.”_

_And they did, helping her plow a path through the incoming Black Sun reinforcement forces all the way back to the landing pad._

_There she thanked them fervently and they her._

_“Keep fighting,” she encouraged as she mounted a speeder. “And may the Force be with you.”_

_“We will,” he promised. “Good luck, Jedi,” Then he and his men saluted her smartly as she departed at break neck speed._


End file.
